FOLLOWING THE TRACTOR

Over the course of a year, all manner of birds and animals follow a farmer as he works the fields with his tractor.

Across pages of torn-paper collage that seems to leap off the paper, the large-format double-page spreads showcase the changing landscape around the farm with close-ups of brightly colored machinery. Beginning with the cover and endpapers, a visual story of village life through the seasons unfolds alongside the text. The background provides attentive young listeners with ample opportunities to count birds on the wire, sheep on the hillside or people walking dogs. The narrative is delivered in a lively typeface that ties it to the hubbub of activity behind it while telling the farmer’s story in a matter-of-fact way that’s perfect in its pacing, with the feel of a cumulative rhyme and a satisfying amount of rounded vowels: “So, the tractor, it is sleeping / when the farmer comes along, / lugging his load across the cold, hard ground. // And the cows come down, / to see what can be found, / by following the farmer around and around.”

A delightful book that will stand up to repeated readings on a lap or in a group setting.