This Is the Rain

We've been on something of a kick with cumulative poems lately, with some I've reviewed before and another one that I'm planning to review soon. Today's cumulative poem is This Is the Rain. I was a bit nervous when I picked it up at the library right as we were running to check out, because I thought it might be full of environmentalist nonsense. But in fact it's not, and it turned out to be a solid choice.

The book is about the water cycle, and with each verse of the poem it introduces a new phase of the cycle. It begins, "This is the ocean, blue and vast, that holds the rainwater from the past." Next it introduces sunshine, then water vapor, then clouds. Finally we see actual rain, and then the land that absorbs the water, and the puddles that form after a storm. On the last page, we see running water, creeks and rivers that flow back into the sea. It's a very effective introduction that touches all parts of the water cycle in a catchy poem without cumbersome scientific explanation that would be too much for a toddler.

The illustrations are not really my style, but some people might like them. It's that sort of modern style that I sometimes describe as "throw a lot of relevant things onto the page in random places." So, the night sky is full of ... starfish, and the seahorses stick their noses out of the water. Oh yeah, and there's a random apatosaurus at the bottom of the ocean. Whatever. The colors are quite vivid, however, and all of the items are real if their placement leaves something to be desired.

In sum, this is a nice one to read a few times, but I wouldn't have purchased it.

Birds

I am thoroughly impressed with Birds, a book I picked up at a garage sale last weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love garage sales? Anyway, Birds veers wildly back and forth from straightforward to whimsical, somehow managing to tie the two into a lovely package.

One page points out all the different colors birds can be. Another remarks on their variety of sizes. And another imagines (and illustrates!) what the sky would look like if birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew through the air. Vibrant colors woosh through the sky. Brilliant!

Other pages are told from a child's first person perspective. One two-page spread is illustrated with seven birds sitting on a telephone wire, copied three times, with the birds in exactly the same positions from picture to picture. "Once I saw seven birds on the telephone wire. They didn't move and they didn't move and they didn't move." I looked away for just a second . . . " (page turn) "and they were gone." A thick black telephone wire slices through the otherwise empty page.

Charlie cannot read this book just once. He's asked for it many times since I brought it home, and each time he has to read it at least twice in a row, sometimes more. He loves to point out all the colors of the birds and says some of the surprising punch lines along with me. This is a real gem!

Wave

Don't attempt to read this book unless your preschooler has been to the beach. Wave is an adorable wordless story about a little girl having a conversation, entirely in body language, with the ocean. What I learned when I bought this book several months ago is that the ocean is an unbelievably difficult concept to explain, and even more so when the person you're explaining it to doesn't have a perfect grasp of the English language yet. Water as far as you can see? That's hard to imagine. Why on earth would huge amounts of water move back and forth like that? None of the water I've ever encountered moves of its own accord that way.  Seashells? What?

But your trip to the beach need not be long and involved. We took a trip to Los Angeles in December and spent an hour or so walking along the beach, piling up sand, watching the waves, and sticking our toes in the water (until that became too cold and scary). When we returned home, suddenly Wave was infinitely more comprehensible and more interesting.

The book shows a little girl at the beach "talking to" or playing a game with the waves of the ocean. She stands on the beach at first, watching. She runs away when the water comes toward her, then turns and threatens it back with her arms up over her head. She sticks her toe in, finds it's fun to splash, and kicks up a storm. But when a very large wave appears, she gets nervous and flees again, stopping at a safe distance to stick out her tongue with a "can't catch me" attitude. But she hasn't run far enough! The wave does catch her with such force that she's knocked off her feet. Drenched and seated on the beach as the wave recedes, she's thrilled to find a treasure trove of perfect seashells left behind. When her mother finally takes her home, she looks back over her shoulder in a visual pun--waving goodbye to the wave.

The author and illustrator has set up quite a challenge for herself in this book. Not only is it wordless, which requires her to tell the story entirely in pictures, the illustrations are limited to three colors: black, white, and blue. The scene is nearly identical page after page. A little girl, an ocean, some sand dunes in the background, and a flock of seagulls. Near the end we see some shells and the girl's mother, but most of the pages have nothing but these four elements. Nonetheless, the challenge is met beautifully, with evocative illustrations that are appreciably different from each other and tell a real story.

Once Charlie understood the concept of the ocean, he fell in love with this book. He loves to tell me the story, making "woosh" noises and waving his arms around to illustrate the waves moving back and forth. He points out the seashells and the starfish, and talks about the animals that live in the ocean (which he knows about from other books and from visiting the aquarium). It's a great way for him to remember his one brief trip to the beach, which probably won't be repeated for another year or so. This book is lots of fun, and very nice to look at.

Have You Seen Birds?

I do a lot of my children's book shopping at garage sales, so I am frequently dismayed to discover that some of my favorite second-hand finds are out of print. Thank goodness for used sales on Amazon, where you can find a copy of just about anything, because Have You Seen Birds? is just awesome. The premise is simple: A cat looks out the window longingly, describing all the different types of birds she likes to watch.

Since so many kids' books are written in rhyme, I've been thinking about when I should use the "poetry" tag on my posts and when not. I've decided it should be reserved for poems with some level of literary merit, and this book fits the bill. The text is a treasure trove of complex and hyphenated adjectives strung into a fun rhythm that reminds me a little bit of The Song of Hiawatha. Let me give you a taste:

Have you seen birds?
Long-legged tall birds,
tiny bug-sized small birds,
brightly breasted,
gaily crested,
meadow tan or fancy fan.
Have you seen birds?

. . .

Have you heard town birds?
Rapping-at-the-bark birds,
Cooing-in-the-park birds,
quarreling-in-a-rage birds,
tweeting-in-a-cage birds,
squealing, squawking,
screeching, talking.
Have you heard birds?

. . .

Look up -- see the sky birds,
flying-way-up-high birds,
racing-up-to-space birds,
wind-wheeling,
freedom-feeling,
diving, dipping, gliding, tipping.
Have you seen birds?

Okay, that was probably too much to quote, but I just love it so much!

The illustrations are also very interesting. They're all done with clay models, like a claymation movie. The detail is amazing, with individual feathers and little texture grooves carved in. Background details appear as well, not just the birds themselves. There are plants with flowers and berries growing, worms, insects, gardening implements, individual twigs in a nest, even snowflakes and flecks of foam on the waves.

There's no moral lesson here or anything, just a catalog of all the detailed variety of this one particular aspect of nature. Nevertheless, it's one of my absolute  favorites.

Outside, Inside

Outside, Inside is a gem of a book, and sadly, out of print. Used copies are available on Amazon. I picked mine up at a garage sale, where I was told that it had been a favorite book in the seller's household when her kids were younger. Charlie enjoys it as well.

The book is about a thunderstorm that lasts a whole morning. One sentence and accompanying illustration describe what is happening outside, and the next sentence and illustration describe what is happening indoors in a little girl's house at the same time. The text is highly evocative of the sounds, textures, sights, even smells associated with a rainstorm and a day spent indoors. ("Outside, the rain spills from the clouds, shussh-wissh, shussh-wissh, shussh-wish. Inside, the clock ticks in the hall, tink-tunk, tink-tunk, tink-tunk. Outside, puddles bubble and churn with the falling rain. Inside, maple syrup slips down a pancake mountain.")

The illustrations are made of cut-paper and are very neat to look at. They feel both simple and complex at the same time -- simple in their use of few colors per item, but complex in the intricacy of the shapes that have been created. A number of animals make an appearance also--a cat inside, birds, frogs, and rabbits outside.

The entire book has a quiet, peaceful, natural, uplifting feel to it. The story is told with a minimum of words, and largely implied. This contributes to the quiet atmosphere that is created when reading it. The girl is not bored or unhappy that it's raining and she's stuck inside for the day. She simply finds indoor ways to amuse herself (playing marbles, baking cookies). When the storm ends, she is also happy to open the door and breathe the fresh air. I love books that can create a mood for their readers, and this book certainly does that.

The Lion & the Mouse

Charlie sometimes gets angry when I try to discuss a book with him, page by page, instead of reading the printed text. "Sing it, Mommy!" he demands.

To get around this problem, I went out and bought a bunch of picture books with no words. As soon as he figured out that there was no printed text to read, he became much more engaged in thinking through the stories himself.

The Lion & the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney, is our favorite wordless book at the moment. The only words written on the pages are a few animal sounds: "Screech" for an owl and "Roar" for the lion and so forth. The watercolor paintings are so expressive that the well-known story is clearly told. Charlie and I talk about what happened and what will happen next as we turn the pages, and also about how the characters might be feeling. The pictures are also quite rich with detail in the backgrounds and the expressions of the animals. This book won the 2010 Caldecott Medal, and in my opinion, it was well deserved.

The story of the Lion & the Mouse is also a worthy one. It's a tale of unexpected friendship and repaying one good turn with another. These are lessons that I'm happy to teach to my son.

EyeLike Nature: Leaves

The EyeLike series uses amazingly beautiful photography of natural objects to tell stories and teach concepts. These have been some of our favorites, though Charlie is still too young for many of the more advanced EyeLike books. Perfect for the one-year-old set, though, are the four board books in the EyeLike Nature series: Leaves, Sticks, Stones, and Snow. For no discernible reason, Charlie fell in love with Leaves while merely liking Sticks and Stones. Understandably, since we live in Atlanta, he could never really relate to Snow. In my view, all four of them are lovely.

Each page features a colorful photo of a child interacting with some form of leaves. There are leaves growing on plants, fall leaves on the ground, piles of leaves, even a child eating salad for lunch. The text consists of a simple sentence or phrase for each picture, such as "There are leaves in my garden." I soon had the text memorized, but the pictures are so gorgeous to look at that I was rarely bored when rereading it multiple times.

Charlie also enjoys creating art projects with the various sets of EyeLike Stickers.