BOG BUDDIES

Learn fascinating facts about bogs’ functions and the many animals and plants that call them home.

Bogs, often considered swampy and unwelcoming, don’t have the greatest reputation. But this deep dive is so inviting, enlightening, and playful that readers will eagerly soak up the captivating details. Following one year in the life of a bog, it starts with summer rains being “gulped up” by grinning personified peat. While the bog filters water, varied wetland creatures “slip-slide” in. After Hevron chronicles the bustling ecosystem’s expansion, she comes full circle as rain refills the bog once again. She doesn’t miss any chances to communicate information graphically or linguistically, starting with a title page showing a conveniently labeled bog and then seamlessly alternating between single and double-page spreads and comic book–style panels. Gauzy art, made from digitally collaged acrylic, marker and pencil, is anything but murky. Color shifts signify the changing seasons, and the bogs’ inhabitants are adorably charismatic. Critters like beavers, turtles, and wood ducks are fashioned from minimalistic but evocative shapes and feature sunny, arched line faces—even flora, like pitcher plants. A similarly light touch ensures that the text never feels bogged down. It bounds along with springy alliterative phrases (“beaver kits kidded in cattails”) and speech bubbles overflowing with puns and witty one-liners (“I’m likin’ you!” says one gnome lichen to another).

A wisecracking work of nonfiction that will surely be read on re-peat.