Taking Time

The phrase “taking time to” begins each line of this book’s rhyming verse, a gentle reminder to stop and appreciate the natural world. Digital spreads by Loring-Fisher (Maisie’s Scrapbook) place children of varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds among misty planes of texture and pattern. An orange and black bird perches in a tree, its beak open. “Taking time to listen to/ a bird’s song on the breeze,” the poet writes, as a girl with brown skin and a long black braid looks up, the basket in her hand forgotten. Another child stands under a cherry tree whose petals fall like snow: “Taking time to gather up the blossom dancing free.” Still another stands with a seashell to their ear, “Taking time to imagine/ the deep sounds of the sea”; brightly clad figures wielding nets stand in the ocean beyond. Sources of light vary, too: a campfire, leaf-filtered sunlight, a curtain-framed window. Round-the-world books sometimes assume that a location in the English-speaking world is “home”; this one unites the children in a schoolyard that could be almost anywhere, and a world map identifies each child’s place of origin. Ages 5–8. [em](Apr.) [/em]