PRESCHOOL
Harrison, Penny

Extraordinary!

(2) PS Illustrated by Katie Wilson. This gentle picture book opens with a question: "Have you ever had an extraordinary wish?" The opening pages set the stage by proposing dreams of flying with eagles or harnessing unicorns, but soon the rhyming text and accompanying spreads shift to suggesting that moments in daily life can be equally "extraordinary." "The extraordinary bellows, / it trumpets and booms. / It towers above us, / it blazes and blooms. / But what of the ordinary, everyday thing? / The soft, quiet moment that makes the world sing?" As the words describe the sensations of an experience, the soft art depicts the source of those special moments: a bird's nest, a shooting star, a full moon, a bountiful garden, a quiet forest. The moments chronologically cover the seasons of the year from spring through winter: each picture shows a child absorbing a detail of the world around them, either alone or with friends or family, which can give readers and listeners an entry point to think about their own special moments as well as providing a springboard for identifying new ones. Endpapers bracket the book's timeline, with migrating birds heading one way in spring and in the opposite direction in winter.

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