Tuesday Storytime: Spring, Part 2

Second set of fun spring books: these are more loosely "springtime" than the first set, but this set were all rhyming in a subtle nod to April as Poetry Month.

Spring's Sprung
Lynn Plourde, illustrated by Greg Couch
ISBN: 0689842295
Anthropomorphized sister seasons and a Mother Earth are strangely haunting, despite light verse.

The illustrations here are peculiar.  I suppose it's difficult to make anthropomorphized seasons into a set of sisters while still keeping them individual and differentiated, but they and their Mother Earth occasionally look haunting or straight-up creepy.  Despite this intermittent odd tonal shift, the illustrations are mostly beautiful and remind me of the Pastoral section of the original Disney Fantasia.  Mother Earth is waking her three daughters: March, April, and May, and setting them to begin the new day (the new year).  But like siblings often do, these three are competing among themselves to be Mother's favorite at everything.  By the end, they're in tears, and Mother has to reassure them that she doesn't have a favorite; they're all equally loved and equally a favorite.  Less focus on spring, and more on sibling rivalry, but it's sweet and fun.

A Leaf Can Be...
Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Violeta Dabija
ISBN: 9780761362036
Previously reviewed here

This one covers all the seasons, but enough of it is spent on green-leaf illustrations that I felt it fit well enough.  All the beautiful and interesting things leaves do or can become or provide for various creatures.  Delightful and so pretty.

Flowers are Calling
Rita Gray, illustrated by Kenaro Pak
ISBN: 9780544340121
Digital/watercolor art is FANTASTIC, and the book is naturalistic and accurate.

This was a bit long for our age-group, but the pictures are just amazing, and the information is accurate and presented in a cute way.  I just can't get over how beautiful and delicate and intricate and busy (in a good way) the illustrations are in this book.  The spreads are beautiful and detailed, the flowers are vibrant and natural, and the whole is rendered in a way that almost makes me think of pop-ups or wood-cuts because of the heavily-layered feel of the scenes.  Just incredibly beautiful,  We read through spreads of flowers and a local animal and the flower's pollinator, and the hook for the narration is that the flower is calling to the small unobtrusive pollinator, not to the big or notable local animal.  After three of these, we see a spread with all the flowers together with a nonfiction blurb (which I truncated enormously) about how each flower needs or relates to a specific pollinator.  I really loved seeing the spreads on the night-time flowers.  Not only were they beautiful, but it's nice to see moths and bats getting a bit of attention as pollinators.  Absolutely stunning.  

New Arrivals: Picture Book: A Leaf Can Be... by Laura Purdie Salas & Violeta Dabija

A Leaf Can Be... ("sequel" to the beautiful A Rock Can Be... reviewed earlier in the year)
Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Violeta Dabija
ISBN: 9780761362036
Soft-edged watercolors with bright splashes of natural colors, and lots and lots of green.

I have to admit up front that I didn't like this one as much as I loved A Rock Can Be, but it's still a really lovely book.  I wish it had shown up a week earlier, as I would have used it in my most recent storytime.

Like the previous installment, we're looking at quirky (and rhyming!) uses of leaves, benefits of leaves, characteristics of leaves, and even emotional resonances of leaves.  It's quite lovely, and reminded me strongly of the simple feel of A Tree is Nice.

New Arrivals: Juv Nonfiction: A Rock Can Be... , Laura Purdie Salas, Violeta Dabija

We're just rolling in the natural history goodness over here these days.

A Rock Can Be...
Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Violeta Dabija
ISBN: 9781467721103
A poetic exploration of what rocks can (or could) be, with soft illustrations reminding me of One White Wishing Stone.

I love the sweet simplicity of this rhyming sequence, and the often-surprising contrasts that are created in the adjacent rhymes.  The visual imagery in "desert dune / harvest moon" is stunning, but even more mentally interesting is the concept match between "Harbor protector / Land connector" showing a rock-embraced round harbor, which is echoed in reverse by a sweep of river arced across by graceful stone bridges.

The rhyme itself is short, leaving four pages at the end for a discussion of rocks and of each of the specific call-outs that the rhymes use, of a Glossary, and a Further Reading selection.

Descriptive, evocative, and inspiring.  Nonfiction can be so beautiful!