seasons

Review: A Leaf Can Be… by Laura Purdie Salas

| Tasha

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A Leaf Can Be… by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Violeta Dabija

Explore leaves throughout the seasons in this work of poetry.  The book focuses less on the science of leaves and much more on their impact, their dance on the wind, the shade they spill, and the color they give.  Told in verse that will work very well with young children, this book captures the wonder of nature.  

This is a dance of a book with rhymes and rhythms that really sparkle.  Much of the book is done in two-word lines that encapsulate one aspect of leaves, “sun taker” and “food maker,” and then in the autumn, “pile grower” and “hill glow-er.” 

Dabija’s art is jewel-toned and dynamic.  Her work is infused with merriment and joy.  She uses layers and transparency to great effect, capturing the beauty of nature.  One particularly striking page is her “frost catcher” where the layers of her work shine and the details are luminous. 

A great book to use in a unit about trees, this is also a book that invites exploring a poem.  Exquisite writing is well matched with rich art in this book.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano

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and then its spring

And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

This enchanting book starts with the brown of late winter.  It’s the brown that you have to plant seeds into in the hopes of green coming soon.  But then you have to wait for rain, hope that the birds didn’t eat the seeds, realize that the bears may have stomped too close to the seeds because they can’t read signs, and then you have to wait some more.  It stays brown, but even the brown starts to change and seem more hopeful and humming.  Then you wait some more, and then one day, if you are patient and keep caring for your newly planted seeds, you wake up to green!

Oh how I love this book!  In her poetic prose, Fogliano captures the patience of gardening, the drudgery of late winter, and the hope that must be invested in order to see seeds spring to life.  I had expected the birds eating the seeds, but the stomping bears led me to realize that this was more playful a book than I had originally expected, something I love to have happen in the middle of a picture book!  

Add to this the illustrations of Caldecott winner Stead and you have such a winning book.  Her art has a delicacy that is perfect for the whispers of early spring.  The boy in the story is thin, wear glasses, and by the time spring finally comes has created quite a garden with birdfeeders, signs, and plenty of lumps of dirt.  By far my favorite part comes at the end, where the garden does not burst into flowers but remains weedy and lumpy, but green.  Perfection.

Doing a spring story time soon?  Get your hands on this book!  Ideal for classes planting a garden or all of us longing for the green to return.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Book Review: Seasons by Anne Crausaz

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seasons

Seasons by Anne Crausaz

Explore and celebrate the seasons in this lovely picture book.  A little girl moves through the seasons, seeing each one through the changes in nature that occur.  She experiences them with all of her senses:  seeing the green of spring, smelling the tomatoes, basil, verbena and mint in the garden in summer, tasting the blackberries in fall, and feeling the cold of snow in winter.  This is a book that reminds all of us to treasure the time we currently in, to slow down and notice the seasons, to savor the tastes and smells around us.

Crausaz’s text is spare and poetic, allowing readers to experience the moments in the book without any excess words.  A few sentences per page at most, the book takes readers through a sensory journey where they too can remember the colors, smells, tastes, sounds and feels of each season. 

Her art is equally simple.  Using only a few lines to denote facial features, the illustrations are done in bright colors that play well against each other.  The horizon is done in colored bands, the sky and clouds in other colors, trees and leaves play against that background.  It is a stylized and very successful look for a picture book.

While the seasonal picture book shelf can get crowded, this fresh, poetic book should find a place there.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Kane Miller EDC Publishing.

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Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons

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snowrabbit

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons by Il Sung Na

The author of A Book of Sleep returns with another book filled with striking illustrations.  When winter comes, all of the animals know it.  Some fly to warmer places, others take a long sleep, some swim to warmer waters, and others grow a thicker coat.  The white rabbit leads readers through so many different types of animals and how they deal with the winter season.  Then spring comes and all of the animals know it’s a new season.  That includes our friend the rabbit who looks very different now!

Il Sung Na has created a book that celebrates changing seasons with a sense of joy and fun.  Readers will see migration, hibernation, and much more in this book.  The text remains simple and straight-forward, keeping the concepts to a preschool level nicely. 

The real impact is made by Il Sung Na’s incredible illustrations that are lush, vivid and at the same time laced with a real delicacy of line and pattern.  Created using handmade textures combined with digitally generated layers, this is a sort of illustration that is stylized, modern and still welcoming and friendly.

Highly recommended, this book is a beautiful exploration of changing seasons, ideal for welcoming spring.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House Children’s Books.

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Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys

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Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Raczka, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

A brilliant combination of haiku poems, clever humor, and engaging illustrations, this book is sure to appeal to its target audience of guys and also to girls.  Celebrating the small things in life, each haiku takes a moment in time and then offers a grin to the reader.  The poems are arranged in seasons, fitting because so many of them are about nature and a boy’s relationship with it.  Whether it is flying a kite, skipping rocks, leaf piles or snowball fights, children will relate easily to these vignettes about the things that make life fun. 

Raczka’s haiku are light-hearted and enjoyable.  Thanks to the brief nature of the format, the poems are easily shared aloud.  Nicely, the poems stand on their own or work together as a larger piece of writing.  Reynolds’ art is equally engaging.  It too has a great humor about it but also a sense that a moment is being captured. 

A celebration of seasons, play and boyhood, this book is a treat.  If librarians are looking for something to take with them for summer reading program visits, the summer haiku here would make a great thing to share with boys of many ages.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from library copy.

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The Village Garage

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The Village Garage by G. Brian Karas

Follow the activities of the workers from the village garage as the seasons change.  In spring, the workers are cleaning up sticks, creating mulch, and washing the trucks.  In summer, they are fixing the roads, picking up garbage, and mowing the grass.  They even deal with the effects of a summer thunderstorm that takes out a bridge.  In autumn, they suck up the leaves.  In winter, work is slower until the snow starts and then they wish for spring to come again.  The book mixes the interesting tools and machines the workers use into the story.  Readers will learn what the machines are called and what they do.  This is a rare book that reads beautifully but also has lots of machinery for children to learn about.  Too often they read like lists of tools rather than stories.

Karas perfectly captures small town life along with garage work.  The use of the seasons to frame the story works particularly well with the seasonal nature of their work.  Karas’ art is friendly and also has that same small town feel and a genuine enjoyment for the machines themselves.  Karas incorporates women and people of color throughout his illustrations.  The book offers great sound effects to read aloud, which children will happily help with.  Chains rattle, the leaf truck sucks noisily.  He also weaves a nice sense of humor throughout the book with small touches. 

Ideal for machine story times, this book will also be a great addition to seasonal stories.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from book received from Henry Holt.

Also reviewed by 100 Scope Notes.

Sharing the Seasons

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Sharing the Seasons selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by David Diaz

I consider Lee Bennett Hopkins one of the greatest anthologists of children’s poetry in our time.  His latest collection offers poetry that celebrates the seasons.  Once again his skill at placement of poems next to one another is apparent.  He manages to form an order to the poems that reads fluidly and never groups them together lumpily by smaller themes.  This collection features poems that are child friendly, but never didactic.  They are poems that sing and thanks to the conducting skills of Hopkins, they are a symphony.

Hopkins contributed poems himself to the anthology, often using them to frame the theme.  There are poems here that are quite short but stunningly deep.  The one I adore most ends the anthology:

December by Sanderson Vanderbilt

A little boy stood on the corner

And shoveled bits of dirty, soggy snow

Into the sewer–

With a jagged piece of tin.

He was helping spring to come.

Diaz’s art is glowing.  Rich and warm, it encircles the poems and illuminates them.  He captures the light and holds it to the page in vibrant color.  Beautiful and poetic.

Highly recommended, this poetry anthology is a jewel.  Perfection for seasonal poems, it sings of the seasons.  Appropriate for ages 4-9.

Reviewed from copy received from McElderry Books.

Also reviewed by A Patchwork of Books.

Mama Is It Summer Yet?

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Mama, Is It Summer Yet? by Nikki McClure

This lovely, gentle book shows the slow approach of summer through the spring as buds appear on trees, seeds are planted in the garden, trees blossom, and baby ducks follow their mothers.  Focused on the natural world and the seasonal changes around us, this book has a wonderful connection to the earth.  McClure’s stunningly detailed cut-paper illustrations add to the appeal with subtle colors warming the black and white.  A great read aloud for a toddler story time on spring or summer, or a great book to snuggle together with on a wintry day and dream of the warm days to come.

This book features charming, brief writing that offers information on the seasons and ties directly in to what the illustrations are showing.  The relationship of the mother and child throughout the book is very organic and loving.  The illustrations are so deftly done that it is sometimes hard to even imagine that they are cut paper.  The detail would be impressive enough with pen and ink. 

A pleasure of a book, share this with children who are enjoying summer right now but make sure to pull it out to warm up cooler days as well.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

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City Dog, Country Frog

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City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth

I was a little concerned about a book by Willems that he didn’t illustrate himself, but I shouldn’t have.  This book is a rich exploration of friendship.  A dog who has never lived in the country before runs out through the fields and comes upon a frog sitting on a rock near the water.  The frog immediately invites the dog to be his friend and the two play frog games together that spring.  When summer comes, the dog and frog play city dog games together, including fetch.  In the fall, the frog is growing old and tired.  So the two play remembering games together, thinking of spring and summer and the games they played.  Then winter came and when the dog headed to the rock, the frog wasn’t there.  Then spring came again, and this time the dog was the one sitting on the rock waiting for a friend.  And guess who came?  A new and unexpected friend.

This book is about friendship, that deep and abiding type of friendship that is about connection.  It is also about loss and it captures it so vividly that children will immediately understand the gravity of winter and exactly what the dog is experiencing.  It is a very powerful moment, depicted in deep blues of winter cold and silence in the text.  Beautifully captured.  At the same time though, it is a book about friendship continuing, new friends arriving, and the ability to move on and resume.  Willem’s language is simple and adept, he says things is so few words yet captures feelings perfectly.  Muth’s illustrations really capture the seasons. One can almost smell the grass of spring, the autumn leaves, and the crisp snowy air.  He also imbues the animals’ faces with deep emotions yet makes sure that they are still dogs and frogs. 

Highly recommended, this pairing of author and illustrator has created an amazing story that is deep and moving.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.  Make sure when you share this with a child that there is time to talk afterwards, it is sure to start a conversation.

Reviewed from library copy.

Check out the trailer that Mo Willems created for the book:

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