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| How Things Work in the Yard |
As bugs begin to flit about and crawl up fingers this spring, children will be racing inside with questions about all that they see.
To help nurture their enthusiasm for nature and activities they love to do in the yard, here are two learning books that will keep them wide-eyed to the last page:
Bugs by the Numbers, an insect book that wows with graphics and facts, and
How Things Work in the Yard, an exploration of creatures and playthings in a child's backyard.
For more about these sweet titles from Blue Apple Books, read my reviews below!
Words and Art by Lisa Campbell Ernst
$14.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages
Little eyes will dart around the pages of this charming book like they would taking in a yard awakening with activity.
With adorable paper cut-outs and facts that say just enough, award-winning Ernst answers 20 questions about what children see as they play in their yard.
Each question is posed as child would ask it: How does it work? -- whether the thing is mechanical or not -- and this gives the story a sweet feeling from the start.
"How does a butterfly work?" one spread asks. Among the answers: by tasting nectar with its feet, using wings to fly and feel sound, and sipping nectar with a straw-like proboscis.
Children learn where dirt comes from, how a robin sings, what an acorn becomes, how a squirrel leaps and balances, why a snail leaves a gooey trail, how a sprinkler sprays water at them, even how a bubble floats from a wand.
Ernst brings a child's experience to the page with playful details. In a spread about wheels, a child tugs on his wagon and causes his stuffed animals inside to flop over. In a spread about water, a child galoshes splash down into a puddle.
Each description is age-appropriate (fireflies are "beetles with a blinking light") and a few spreads suggest ways for readers to play with the subject: Ernst shows how to chain dandelions together, cause ripples in a puddle and float a leaf like a boat.
Colors are warm and soft, and cut-outs are cheery and simple, yet have added details that give them depth and magic: a dandelion's petals spiral around in tiny rectangles and a seed pod seems to puff out as tiny stars of white paper crowd onto a serrated circle of velum.
Like the endearing little books preschoolers staple from construction paper to learn about the life cycle of a plant or butterfly, this book captures a child's wonder at learning about the world for the first time.
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