Leaving Home

Leaving Home

From School Library Journal reschool-Grade 3--This natural-history picture book takes a look at animal maturation. After a pictureless first page stating "Sooner or later, we all leave home," the top of each subsequent page features a large-type simple text telling the many ways animals do this. Watercolor paintings of the animals fill the middle of the pages and along the bottom smaller typeface text gives more detailed information about the creatures, including why and when they depart. Thus, the text along the top may have one word such as "hop," with an illustration depicting a rabbit family while the bottom text tells about rabbit reproduction and the differing ways males and females leave home. Occasional points are stretched to fit the theme; for example, wildebeests don't really leave home, they migrate with their herds. The chambered nautilus hatches, which is not leaving home in the way the other animals in the book do. Dunning's large, striking watercolors show each creature in its habitat in a manner that doesn't aim for photographic realism yet manages to include just enough detail to be informative as well. To underscore the theme, most of the animals are pictured breaking through into the pastel border that frames each illustration. This handsome book works both as a concept picture book ideal for a storytime and as an informational source.Louise L. Sherman, formerly at Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. We all