There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom

by David Suzuki, Eugenie Fernandes (Illustrations)

This fun and engaging story makes an engrossing — but not overwhelming — introduction to environmental issues for young readers. With the help of their parents and their own imaginations, Jamie and Megan discover that natural magic is all around them, even in their own home. Sheets and pillows, fruits and furniture — they all come from nature. What’s more, the air isn’t just empty space — it’s full of smells, sounds, water, and life-giving gases. And their backyard contains clues to both past and future: rocks from millions of years ago, a nail from pioneer times, and seeds that will grow into food for the summer. Beautiful full-color illustrations bring each adventure to vibrant life, with a forest growing in the living room and a stream appearing in the back garden. Each chapter ends with a page of related activities, and a glossary is included at the back.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

64 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2008

About the author

David Suzuki is a Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist. A long time activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us." The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and David Suzuki's Nature Challenge. He also served as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from 1982-1987.

Reviews

[Manybooks]

Before I start my review of David Suzuki's 2008 (longer) picture book There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom, I do have to admit that I am kind of smiling a bit that the Open Library copy of There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom I have downloaded and borrowed is in fact a discard from the Hamilton Public Library, from my own local library system (although I also do find it kind of problematic and sad that public libraries are obviously increasingly discarding books).

And yes, with regard to the book itself, while I do really find that the accompanying illustrations for There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom are not all that much to my aesthetic tastes, since I do personally consider Eugenie Fernandes' artwork a bit too cartoon like and visually exaggerated (and so much so that the drawings even tend to feel rather visually overbearing and potentially distracting at times), what the author, what David Suzuki textually presents in There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom is both interesting and generally engagingly presented, describing with many different examples that nature, that the outside also usually tends to exist inside (in our bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms etc. since oh so much of what we sleep on, what we eat, what we build with etc. originally comes from nature, originates in the forest, on the farm and so on and so on). And indeed, that even articles made of say plastic have a huge and strong connection to nature (and indeed also to the past), since the petroleum used to make plastic was millions of years ago part of a prehistoric forest.

A fun and educational romp is There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom, and also imbued with the important ecological and environmental message that because nature is everywhere and really also in everything, it (and its ecosystems) obviously also both need and deserve protection and conservation. And even though I have from my own aesthetics not really enjoyed Eugenie Fernandes' illustrations as much as David Suzuki's text, I do think that narrative and images work well enough together and especially for the intended audience, for children from about the age of six to ten or so (and yes, while from a personal reading pleasure point of departure, I would probably be rating There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom with a sold three stars, the fact that David Suzuki has also included both a detailed glossary and some activities makes me up my rating to four stars).

[Tina B]

Environment, extremely long