Jason Reynolds 'First-Day Fly'

In the story “First-Day Fly” by Jason Reynolds, the author is describing his preparations for the first day of school as a kid. In the beginning, the kid is shown with negative feelings about school, but as the story progresses, the boy is shown getting more and more optimistic and hopeful about his first day, which is a “day that counts” according to paragraph 4. Overall, the boy turns more positive throughout the course of the story as he focuses on preparing his outfit for the first day of school and moves his mind away from the things about school that he doesn’t like.
In the beginning of the story, the boy is shown describing his opinion about school. According to him, “... normally you don’t like school. Because there is not much to like

And even as the fact remains that school doesn’t have anything to like about it, the process of careful preparations the boy does to make his perfect “first-day fly” make him more hopeful and determined. He slowly starts becoming more confident as his outfit comes out just the way he wants it to. It starts with him finally getting his older brother’s pair of jeans that he’s wanted for a long time (paragraph 4). He then irons them with precision (paragraph 5). He then opens his new white shirt and steams it to get rid of the wrinkles (paragraphs 6-8). Lastly, he cleans his shoes (paragraph 9). All these activities are done very precisely and the way the boy wants to, and this is the reason he starts getting more confident that his first-day outfit will be good. For example, in paragraph 5, he states how important he thinks for people to never crease their jeans, the reason he irons them so carefully. But what’s more important is the way he also describes how his homeroom teacher, Mr. Sheinklin, “never got the no-crease memo” (paragraph 5). He figures that the first day of school will be his chance to show Mr. Sheinklin “what a smooth pair of jeans supposed to look like” (paragraph 5). When people start to compare themselves to others to show that they are better than them in some way, it is a sign that they are