Winter Lullaby - Softcover

BARBARA SEULING has written more than fifty books for children. She divides her time between Vermont and New York City.

GREG NEWBOLD is the award-winning illustrator of several children's books. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

PreSchool-Grade 2-This picture book addresses the curious disappearance of nature's summertime animal population when the weather turns cold. Bees head for their hives, bats go to their caves, and birds fly south toward kinder climates. Seven animals in all, including humans, make their escape to warmth. The poetic text consistently puts forth a free-verse question ("When ice covers/the mountain lake like a crust,/where do the fish go?") followed by a rhymed-couplet answer ("They swim below,/where warm streams flow") on the next double spread. The literary qualities-subtle alliteration and assonance as well as rhyme-work well for reading aloud. A three year old may not immediately grasp that a "Breeze [blowing] the petals off the flowers" is an obvious indication of a change of season, but Newbold's illustrations explain it nicely with a pared-down realism of bold but not overly bright acrylic paintings. The artist's pallet complements the text well. Warm-tinted oranges and yellows highlight the waning summer days, while winter's tones are cool blues, whites, and grays. The landscapes depicted seem to be the same rural American countryside, but the insertion of one desert setting interrupts the regionally flavored flow. As a whole, the format seems just a bit haphazard, despite the fine words and pretty pictures.
Peg Solonika, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh,
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