Spring Song

Spring Song

Product Description When they feel springs warm, gentle breezes, bears leave their winter dens, rabbits bound out of their burrows to hop through clover-filled meadows, butterflies emerge from their cocoons. With lush illustrations and an inviting question-and-answer patterned text, Spring Song encourages children to emerge from their wintertime hideaways, to explore the seasonal changes in the world around them, and to join in natures celebration of spring! From Publishers Weekly As in their previous collaboration, Winter Lullaby, Seuling and Newbold present a series of questions with rhymed answers, this time about spring and the renewed activity of various creatures, including humans. When the sun warms/ the hard ground and makes it soft,/ what do moles do?/ Dig a new row/ of tunnels below. Cocoons burst open and release their prize, and bunnies hop all over/ in the clover. For each question, Newbold conjures a different, expansive landscape; for each answer, he supplies a slightly anthropomorphized close-up of the featured animal. With their stately but unmoving panoramas seemingly etched in black-ink shadows, these acrylic paintings look almost like woodcuts. Each blade of yellow grass, each lush woodland flower or rush of waterfall, seems engraved precisely into the landscapes design. The writing, however, is sometimes clumsy (the black bear wakes up to greet/ a swimming treat; in other words, it sees a fish), and the questions are not to be mistaken for riddles. Asked When tall reeds grow/ across the marshy wetlands,/ what do bullfrogs do?, for example, few children would guess, Croak the night long,/ their mating song. Despite the occasional awkwardness, this handsome book offers readers a joyful introduction to the creatures of woodland, forest, mountain range, meadow and marshland. Most will accept Seulings invitation to come out to cheer,/ for spring is here! Ages 2-5. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal PreS-Gr 1-Seuling poses seven questions, each on a double-page spread, asking readers to predict how black bears, moles, skunks, bullfrogs, eagles, rabbits, and people will react to the seasonal changes. A two-page spread reveals the rhyming answer when the page is turned. For example, When tall reeds grow/across the marshy wetlands,/what do bullfrogs do? While it is doubtful that children will respond, Croak the night long/their mating song, they may well guess croak. The final question asks, When cocoons burst/open and release their prize,/what do people do? and the picture shows three children chasing butterflies to the response, Come out to cheer/for spring is here! Newbolds acrylic paintings are full of expressive details. This interactive book will prompt lively discussion and conversation as a read-aloud or for one-on-one sharing.-Helen Foster James, University of California at San Diego Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Ages 2-5. Seuling looks at spring, using a question-and-response pattern to discuss changes in the natural world and how animals respond to them. One spread presents the question; e.g., When tall reeds grow across the marsh wetlands, what do bullfrogs do? The next offers the answer: Croak the night long, their mating song. Visually the effect is to create a series of spring landscapes (mountain, woodland, field, marsh, and so on) alternating with close-ups of animals who live there, another pleasing pattern that reflects the structure of the text. Newbolds acrylic paintings are best seen at a little distance, where the sometimes complex dynamics of individual lines resolve into more formal compositions with clarity and presence. Carolyn Phelan Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author BARBARA SEULING is the award-winning author of more than forty childrens books. In the spring she leaves he