The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Brimner, Larry Dane

What Good Is a Tree?

32 pp. | Children's Press | September, 1998 | Library ISBN 0-516-20953-1 $$17.00

(4) K-3 Rookie Reader series. Illustrated by Leo Landry. Childlike artwork--simple black outlines washed with watercolor--depicts the antics of a brother and sister who imagine all the ways that they can play in and around the big tree in front of their new house. The rhyming text is uninventive, and the small trim size is a poor choice for a story about a huge tree, but the illustrations skillfully vary perspective to show a kid's-eye-view of a tree.

Reviewer: Anne St. John