A joyous tribute to the wonders of a rainy day for the pluviophile in all of us.
A child and pet dog relish a rainy day.
Child and pet stare out the window as clouds gather. Excitedly, as the rain goes “plink, plunk, plonk” on the rooftop, the child dons a raincoat and boots and grabs an umbrella. (Even the dog gets a rain jacket.) The pair delight in the sensory adventure that is play in the rain: They ponder words for rain, the creatures who seek it, and the growing things nourished by it; jump in puddles; launch paper boats near a “curbside waterfall”; and find a quiet spot under a tree to sit for “whisper-talk.” When thunder and lightning fill the sky, they run inside to get warm and dry. In text that begs to be shared aloud, evocative figurative language (“the air is full of waiting” and “umbrellas bloom”), a heaping dose of onomatopoeia (“Crack! Flash!”), and delicious vocabulary (deluge, drizzle, and bursting) vividly animate the thrill of heading outside when “the sky is an adventure.” The illustrations themselves burst with life, movement, and mirth. Cerulean (for the rain) and yellow (for raincoats) hues enchant. One especially pleasing spread gives readers an aerial view of flowers, fruits, and vegetables that benefit from the drink that is the cool, fresh rain. Afterward, the sun and even a rainbow dazzle: “Hello, Sun!” The child has rosy-cheeked pink skin and straight, black hair in pigtails.
A joyous tribute to the wonders of a rainy day for the pluviophile in all of us. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4521-3819-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.
Life buzzes in a community garden.
Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book’s stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it’s not. “Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants”; and “In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a millipede. / Worms and termites / dig and toil / moving through the garden soil.” Sicuro zooms in too, showing a robin taller than a half-page; later, close-ups foreground flowers, leaves, and bugs while people (children and adults, a multiracial group) are crucial but secondary, sometimes visible only as feet. Watercolor illustrations with ink and charcoal highlights create a soft, warm, horticulturally damp environment. Scale and perspective are more stylized than literal. McCanna’s superb scansion never misses, incorporating lists of insects and plants (“Lacewings, gnats, / mosquitos, spiders, / dragonflies, and water striders / live among the cattail reeds, / lily pads, and waterweeds”) with description (“Sunlight warms the morning air. / Dewdrops shimmer / here and there”). Readers see more than gardeners do, such as rabbits stealing carrots and lettuce from garden boxes.
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1797-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
This pleasant look at gardening in a city setting reflects a growing trend.
Several inner-city children work together to plant seeds and cultivate their own gardens, transforming their little “anywhere farms” into a lush, green community garden covering a vacant city lot.
A pink-cheeked little girl in overalls receives a single seed from a helpful tan-skinned neighbor on the title page, and she then inspires a flurry of gardening in her neighborhood with children and adults of different ethnicities joining in, including a white boy who uses a wheelchair. The bouncy, rhyming text conveys the basic requirements of growing plants from seeds as well as suggesting a wide variety of unusual containers for growing plants. Several leading questions about the plant growth cycle are interspersed within the story, set in large type on full pages that show a seed gradually sprouting and growing into a huge sunflower on the final, wordless page. The joyful text makes growing flowers and vegetables seem easy, showing plants spilling out of alternative containers as well as more traditional raised beds and the concluding, large garden plot. The text focuses on the titular concept of an “anywhere farm,” without differentiating between farms and gardens, but this conceit is part of the amusing, rollicking tone. Detailed, soft-focus illustrations in mixed media use an autumnal palette of muted green, peach, and tan that don’t quite match the buoyant flavor of the cheerful text.
This pleasant look at gardening in a city setting reflects a growing trend. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7499-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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