Rating: 4.5 stars
This is a random and unique and neat journey that takes the reader from day to night with one long poem and 1940s-style drawings that illustrate the journey (and help explain that the book actually is a journey to young readers). Plus, it's a good way to teach the basic concept of environmentalism--oh and life, too: everything comes from somewhere or things are connected.
Here's a sample of the first four pages:
"Night becomes day / And day becomes bright / Bright becomes sun / And sun becomes shine / Shine becomes sparkle / And sparkle becomes stream / Stream becomes river / And river becomes ocean."
And building becomes cloud |
There's even an overtly environmental part, about recycling, where "Trees become paper / And paper becomes news / News becomes trash / And trash becomes new." With this book we've really had some good conversation about where things come from, especially paper and water. We're not over-the-top green (we shamelessly but with a few tiny good reasons drive two SUVs, so we'd have to make some major changes in our life to drastically reduce our giant-sized carbon foot print!) but we try to do our part. Little messages like this help me teach our kids.
We've checked out a few books from McGuire, and we've liked the random-ness and neat-ness of all of them, but need to look at some more. Hope you enjoy checking his books out, too!
Thanks for the review. It sounds like a good teaching book about environmentalism. We'll be looking for it at the library. My kids just read a wonderful book called "The Thanksgiving Coat" by author Elizabeth A. Hoadley. It has great illustrations by the author's daughter and teaches children about homelessness, hunger and sharing. A real treasure!
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