These three aren't hugely close to each other in content, but taken as a whole, they provide a nice gentle nonfiction progression through nature. A good informational fit for a rainy, blustery, southern-fall day.
Squish! A Wetland Walk
Nancy Luenn, illustrated by Ronald Himler
ISBN: 0689318421
Scribbly muted watercolor washed landscapes in dull earthy fall colors.
This is a very low-key book. The narrative uses a child in a bright yellow rain-slicker and an older jeans-and-flannel dressed companion as our entry into a gentle and general description of a wetlands, of what it is like, what lives there, why wetlands are important for people to protect, and what they provide for the creatures who live in them. It's not energetic, it's not overly beautiful, but the simple descriptions and flowing watery smudgy artwork makes this a lovely calm informative nonfiction picture book encounter.
Underground
Denise Fleming
ISBN: 9781442458826
Gritty colorful underground cutaway-views of burrows and stratification and various critters.
Fleming is a delight. I don't think I've encountered a single story of hers that I didn't love to page through and exclaim over the amazing number of details hidden in her deceptively crude blocky colorful pages. In this one, we start with a bird, but immediately fall "low down way down under ground" to explore tunnels and burrows and nests and caches and cocoons and ground strata and any number of (totally unmentioned) human artifacts nestled into the embrace of the earth, or being dug into them (we see buried toys and tools, a small potted plant being set into a hole, and a larger tree-root-ball being watered). All of this with the most minimal text possible, and with a variety of animal and insect life represented on the progression of spreads. Excellent guide to the identities of the creatures forms the last spread, and don't forget to check out the endpapers for even more buried treasures.
Step Gently Out
Helen Frost, photographs by Rick Lieder
ISBN: 9780763656010
Forced-close perspective photographs of insects against artistic and muted blurred backgrounds.
Even though there are not one, but TWO whole pages with a spider (the one in Fleming's Underground is small enough and sidelined enough for me to ignore), I think I like this book best of today's trio. A gentle cadence of relaxing commentary introduces various insects (and spiders) but remains unobtrusive against the truly beautiful photography on display here. Again, don't forget to spare a look at the front and back endpages - they're different from each other, and also stunning photographs. Lieder should be proud of his beautiful and entrancing work introducing young people to the smaller creatures we share our planet with.
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