When the Earth Wakes

The simple story of two bears who awaken from a long winter's sleep with the rest of nature to the soft breezes, sunshine, and budding greenery of spring makes a colorful introduction to the seasons or a complement to Earth Day.

PreSchool-K?A gentle book about the Earth in all her glory. She is presented as a living creature who dances with fresh breezes in spring, heats up and thunders in summer, drapes herself in leaves for fall, and covers herself with blankets of snow in winter. The soothing, simple text is evenly paced, inviting children to turn the pages, while the full-page illustrations reward them with well-designed, rich imagery. As the text talks of the Earth, the art shows a mother bear and her cub living through the seasonal changes: waking from their hibernation, eating fish caught fresh from a stream, playing with fireflies, and becoming drowsy from an ample supply of blueberries. This visual metaphor helps tie the creatures of the land to the planet's cycle showing the innate, inevitable connections of all living things. While the land may look like north country, the bluntness of the design is more representational than specific. A fine read-aloud or a cozy book to share just before bed.?Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Striking primitivist illustrations in colored pencil on black board create a robust backdrop for Rucki's (Turkey's Gift to the People) paean to the changing seasons. Employing flat perspectives and stylized shapes?circles for heads, semicircles for the wings of geese in flight, cookie-cutter evergreen trees and stars, undulating lines for the horizon?Rucki's toddler-friendly art lends these pages a reassuring sense of solidity and familiarity, enhanced by a deeply earth-toned palette. Heavy strokes and simple patterns create intriguing contrasts, as in the juxtaposition of a highly tactile field of grass or snow and ethereal northern lights. This simple visual style relates seamlessly to the economical story line and the effortlessly childlike narration. A curious bear cub and its mother watch as the earth "throws off her snowy blankets" when winter changes into spring, then comes fully alive in summer (when she "heats up and thunders through long, hot days"), eventually grows "drowsy" in fall and "drapes herself in colorful leaves," and finally "covers herself with blankets of snow" to sleep through the long cold winter. The text flows at a pace ideal for reading aloud; in light of the ending, it is particularly well suited for bedtime. Certainly the idioms here, visual as well as verbal, are well-worn; the approach, however, feels fresh and new. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This concept book examines the temperate climate's annual cycle, describing each season in poetic language; in spring, for example, the earth ``throws off her snowy blankets, and dances with fresh, soft breezes.'' As the year passes, the earth moves through a metaphor that conjures a day in the life of a child, with spring as wake-up time, summer the flush of play, fall the evening of a long, active day, and winter as bedtime. This level of symbolism is clear and straightforward. Then Rucki adds a mother bear and her cub, illustrated boldly in colored pencil, also moving through the year, from hibernation to hibernation; it's incongruous, because the cub doesn't mature from one winter to the next. The mother-baby image, however, does provide empathetic opportunity for the youngest of the intended readership, for which the book, with its large typeface and elemental visual style, is most appropriate. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 3^-6. The words are about the earth ("When the earth wakes in spring . . . she throws off her snowy blankets, and dances with fresh, soft breezes"), while the pictures focus on a mother bear and her cub awakening in their den and running with the wind swirling around them. The poetic text never mentions the bears, but their endearing brown faces and forms continue to draw the eye until, at last, they are once again safe in their home. Rucki uses colored pencils on black paper for a rich if dark effect and works in lots of large details, good for pointing out to children. A worthwhile, if not essential, purchase. Susan Dove Lempke