A long, dreamy sleep-poem for a baby, in which the parent imagines the idyllic experiences her daughter will have when she is old enough to explore their rural world: watching wild animals and birds, making a garden, romping with a puppy, swimming in a beaver pond, gathering apples and firewood. As the seasons progress from spring through winter, tender mother-child portraits alternate with landscapes through which Emily (at age seven or eight) roams with family and friends. Both the text and Hogrogian's oil paintings are highly particularized, naming northeastern animals, birds, and trees, and describing them in sometimes surprising ways (``the hooting bear that in the spring sounds like the owls of the night''). The illustrations use the muted pastels and grayed blues and mauves of New England landscapes and skies, their tones exquisitely balanced across the pages. Intensely personal, yet thoroughly interpersonal in its delight in a child's discovery of the beautiful things in her world, this book is as much a keepsake for parents as it is a lullaby for children. (Picture book. 2+)
