green home.
Follow my roads
and climb,"
says leaf.
"When I move,
I measure.
I'll count our tickles
across your hand,"
How lovely it is to have a new book by Antoinette Portis arrive at my front door! She proves every time she puts pen to paper, and creates mixed media images to accompany her inviting words, that she knows the hearts and minds of young children.
In this new book, she celebrates summer with tempting words that encourage her readers to listen carefully, and make guesses to solve the riddles she poses. With each turn of the page, the riddle unfolds into a clever solution. What an invitation she provides for critical thinking!
A little girl is enticed from bed by sunlight, and then invited to take note of clues provided to really look at her surroundings. Filled with the goodness of the natural world, she moves from space to space within her own back yard, and then her neighborhood. She is invited to use her senses at every turn. Hearing the call of a cricket, feeling the wispy movement of an inchworn on her finger, seeing the flash of lightning, feeling the splash of rain and ooze of mud, she ends her day in awesome starlight. What an amazing journey through a summer's day!
The mixed media artwork honors the colors of the natural world, and offers textures that encourage young readers to reach out to touch the beauty of the images. The interactive nature of the riddles themselves will encourage talk concerning more than one answer with older children while little ones will be in awe of the beauty found right where they live.
"I'm the rumble
in the stomach of the storm.
(Pardon me -
must be something I ate), "
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