SONG OF THE FLOWERS
by Takayo Noda & illustrated by Takayo Noda
Using paper painted in rich, subtly modulated colors, Noda offers more harmonious collages featuring peaceful landscapes bright with flowers, insects and stars. The illustrations are set to sonorous free verses built on a repeating structure, in which different flowers in succession request a lullaby: “The buttercup asked the dragonfly / ‘Will you sing a lullaby / to lull me oh-so-soft to sleep tonight?’ ” The flowers all gather at the end in a starlit garden between small houses, offering to sing a lullaby themselves to “lull the children soft to sleep tonight.” Children will linger over the lovely, deceptively simple art even as they nod off to the delicately soporific text. (Picture book. 6-8)