Although it's usually easy enough to walk into a store and find the right satchel or backpack for a child's new school year, it can be difficult to figure out whether it would be best to buy kids backpacks or whether a satchel would be better. For any child that's a few years into his grammar school career, it's usually the best policy to get a backpack since very young school kids don't usually have to put up with too many books yet and will usually be able to carry around a backpack without too much trouble.