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THE TURNING OF THE YEAR by Bill Martin Jr

THE TURNING OF THE YEAR

by Bill Martin Jr illustrated by Greg Shed

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1998
ISBN: 0152045554
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

This book on the changing faces of the months is solid Martin fare: a simple story that delights in language and word play. A short poem calls forth the character of each month: "In January, out I go/to welcome winter's icy blow." For the most part, the words and imagery are accessible, but on occasion there are more difficult words or phrases—e.g., chrysanthemum, or "the maple's raucous shout"—to keep readers alert. The book is also a paean to rural life, with harvest fields and New England villages, a hazy September meadow of wildflowers, and a pumpkin patch, all looming large and lovingly. Shed's full-page scenes of a boy and girl living this idyll fairly shout contentment, and on every text page he includes vignettes—candy corn for October, marbles and baseball cards for May, mittens for January—that add to the evocation. Along with Charlotte F. Otten's January Rides the Wind (1997), this is ripe for units on the seasons.