Marc Brown’s “Monkey Not Ready for Kindergarten” (Knopf, 32 pages, $12.99) feels immediately reassuring, with its soft palette, friendly drawings and a font that looks as though the letters were written by a child. Comforting too, in its way, is the spiral-eyed anxiety of the little jug-eared protagonist: “What if his teacher doesn’t like him? What if he gets on the wrong bus? What if he can’t find the bathroom?” Monkey is just not ready, even after his parents take him to buy a lunchbox, backpack and sneakers. So they try role playing: Monkey and his parents and big brother take turns pretending to be teachers and students, in the process familiarizing both little Monkey and the young reader with the expectations and attributes of the kindergarten year.