It’s hard to say a lot about a book that
has only 300 words. It’s elegant. It’s simple. It’s a look at billions of years
of Earth’s natural history in 16 images.
This picture book is made up of engaging stylized
art accompanied by super-simple text with a touch of the poetic. I would love
to have a little kid again to read this to. It is accurate, but accessible. Images
are full of action. Gladstone wrote about complex things using words are short
and common; though a parent might have to explain “evolve,” it is a common word.
Sentences hover around 10 words.
“The earth cooled slowly — so slowly…”
While this book doesn’t have the resilience
of a board book, I’d much rather have read this to my son than Goodnight Moon every night for four
years, even before he knew what the words meant. We would look at all the scenes,
talking about what is shown, how long a million is, whether humans rode
dinosaurs (they didn’t, and the text makes it clear that the two creatures are
separated by several pages). We would use the folio at the end to guide
discovery of each image, making it a scavenger hunt as we spot more detail. A
glossary and list of related websites would help me explain even more and guide
that little learner where their curiosity leads.
Diemert created the art with ink, collage, and digital media. She
made every image active and engaging and full of detail that kids will love to
discover every single night. Even the spread showing a dinosaur skeleton in the
desert has an active tiny creature kids can imagine a story for.
The book leaves us with a sense that though
Earth’s journey was long, it’s not over. Little minds will wonder where it
might lead, and they’ll repeat the poetic words making them part of the family
lexicon.
Recommended for kids from 1 to 8.
by James Gladstone, illustrations by Katherine Diemert
36 pages, OwlKids Books
Images from the book reproduced with
permission of OwlKids Books.
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