Sunflower

From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 1?A story about a sunflower told from the point of view of a young child. The mood is one of pleased deliberation, care, and waiting as the narrator plants, waters, watches, and harvests a single, satisfying flower. The short, simple, sometimes fragmented sentences accumulate into a quiet, unrhymed poem. The words appear in large print on white pages with narrow, maize borders. Opposite each page of text is a flat, posterlike picture rendered in gouache, also bordered in maize. The illustrations are literal; opposite "Up to my knees," readers see the plant backed by two sturdy legs and feet in purple socks and red sneakers. A black cat plays happily in the grass; it is never mentioned, but is always present as a watching friend. The book's pleasing simplicity as well as its subject matter is reminiscent of Jeanne Titherington's Pumpkin Pumpkin (Greenwillow, 1986). For a story with a little more information, try Elizabeth King's Backyard Sunflower (Dutton, 1993); it describes the flower's life cycle and is illustrated with photographs.?Carolyn Jenks, First Parish Unitarian Church, Portland, MECopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From