Genre: Children’s Book, Poetry, Science

Summary:

Aspects of each season are portrayed through poems that highlight the wildlife, weather, pivotal events, and occurrences. The colors that routinely occur throughout each season are also brought to the forefront in both the poetry and the text color.

The illustrations capture a magical world, filled with life and change. The artistic technique of mixed media gives added depth and texture, bringing a whimsical quality to the characters and animals. The warmth of the colors in spring, summer, and fall contrast beautifully with the cooler, subdued colors of winter.

Positives/Negatives:

The words chosen for the poetry communicate an even greater sense of the meaning as they capitalize on alliteration and onomatopoeia for enhancement. The color chosen for the text of the color words adds extra emphasis and visual demarcation. The additional contrast against the background also highlights the words even without reading the poetry, clueing the reader and creating anticipation before investigating the text.

The recurring geometric themes within the illustrations provide a lovely sense of continuity and balance. The moving circles contribute to the sense of change and progress in a subtle way. The use of semi transparent elements, clouds, background patterns, water, and other details give a great feeling of movement and depth, bringing life to each page.

Examples:

The synonyms included for the color words are directly connected to the more basic words providing an easy link for the reader. This is also stressed by the text color for each word reflecting the variation in that color. “In summer, Blue grown new names, turquoise, azure, cerulean.”

In establishing a larger connection and relationship between the colors the interconnectedness of the seasons is again brought forth. In both illustration and text this concept is reinforced. “Purple pours into summer evenings one shadow at a time so slowly I don’t notice until hill, house, book in my hand, and Pup’s Brown spots are all Purple.”

Curriculum Connection:

Using the seasons that are a major theme throughout the book as a foundation, activities focusing on the elements of each season, the weather, the animals, the temperature and other aspects can provide opportunities for research, compare and contrast exercises, and graphic organizers relating similar events and items to each other.

The children using their own inspirational topic can recreate the poetry within the text using both the seasons and color words as a fundamental structure. They can pick another topic and chose a color word to include within their own poetry. They can then draw an illustration similar to those in the book highlighting the topic and the specific color. The use of mixed media can be encouraged as the children can collect items such as newspapers, magazines, scrapbook paper and other items for inclusion in their artwork.

Focusing more exclusively on the media aspect of the book, art projects can be created using a variety of elements that the children can collect for any number of sources. They might do a project about food using items they can find in the kitchen, for example tin foil, plastic wrap, paper grocery bags, etc. Perhaps a project about the outdoors using leaves, flowers, grass, and tree bark for their art media. Any project can be conceived and the items for their media can be limited only by their imagination and the need to keep it from spoiling or attracting critters :)