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PRESCHOOL
Zimmerman, Andrea

If I Were a Tree

40 pp. | Lee | April, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-62014-801-3 $19.95
(2) PS Illustrated by Jing Jing Tsong. Two adults and two kids pack up their things and set out on a camping ­adventure. The children are fascinated by the sights Mother Nature has to offer, stopping to explore in wonder everything that they see and using all their senses to do so. Their enjoyment of nature, big ­spiders included, is palpable. ­Zimmerman's text is a set of conditional statements ("If I were a tree...") that imagines what a tree feels, tastes, smells, hears, and sees--even what a tree might be, know, and love. The text's consistent rhymes ("I'd feel nests on my bark, bats hiding till dark") flow smoothly and capture the many details that the children observe--from worms to "minerals in mud" to "the sneeze of a mole." The book's final rhymes incorporate lyrical metaphors that could apply easily to the socio-emotional side of human lives: "I'd know branches can bend, and cold spells will end, / That spring will renew, and life carries through." Tsong's ­illustrations center a happy ­multiracial family. The pictures, created via ­printmaking techniques and digitally assembled, are highly textured, some even appearing to incorporate oversized fingerprints. Lush, lively greens pop off the page. An appended spread provides tips about using "your five senses" to "get to know" trees.
Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2021

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