From School Library Journal
PreS. This small and simple concept book describes the colors in a spring morning, a summer day, a fall evening, and a winter night. Four specific scenes lead up to each panoramic double-page spread that features a farmhouse with a girl and a boy, a cat and a dog. Siddals's appropriately straightforward and economical text is brought to life by Mathers's folksy watercolors. On facing single pages, she balances the colors and images well, sometimes even continuing the same background from one frame to the next. In her double-page spreads, she includes details that readers can trace from one season to the next (a toy sailboat in the window comes outside for summer play, but returns to its window in the fall; a clothesline is put up in summer and taken down for winter), introducing earliest readers to story line in a book. The careful finishing touches of a smiling sun on the title page, and a smiling, sleeping moon above the final page's "Good night" reflect the thoughtful execution of this fine book. It is well done without being overdone, and the size (a square seven inches) is just right.?Nina Lindsay, Vista School, Albany, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Ages 2^-5. Cheerful yet elegant, spare yet satisfying, compact yet enveloping: these are hardly the words usually associated with simple concept books for the youngest children. But words and paintings combine to create a season book that surprises through to the end. Each season is described by color: "brown mud / brown trees / sky of gray / with pink and purple clouds: / Spring morning." As the seasons progress, so does the time of day, from summer day, to fall evening, and, finally, winter night. Children can try to guess the season with the clues, but at the turn of the page, Mathers shows the same red house, where two children and a dog and a cat live. As the seasons change, children will seek out the changes in the house and its surroundings, as smoke comes from the chimney, jack-o-lanterns appear, or the brown trees turn to green. Both author and artist capture the seasons with poetic intensity and wonder, finishing after "Winter night" with the simplest yet pleasing conclusion: "Good night."
Susan Dove Lempke
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
