Farm. Elisha Cooper. 2010. April 2010. Scholastic. 48 pages.
There is so much to appreciate about Elisha Cooper's Farm. It's a very detailed picture book--an informational picture book--about the ins and outs of farm life. Readers get a glimpse of what a farm looks like--up, close, and personal--throughout the year, through all the seasons. What do I mean about getting up, close, and personal, well, it means that readers get descriptions of what a farm, a modern farm, is really like. This isn't a simplified, cutesy picture book for the preschool crowd.
Take a farmer, another farmer, a boy, a girl.
Add a house, two barns, four silos, some sheds, three tractors,
some trucks, a few farmhands, and plenty of equipment.
Then cattle, chickens, countless cats, a dog.
Put them all together and you get...
a farm.
I like it because it's straight forward. I like it because it's down-to-earth. I like it because of the layered details.
For example,
Some of the barn cats don't have names. Some do. There's Oreo. She's black and white. She's sweet, and good at catching mice. There's Claw. He's always scratching something--the dog, the other cats, the barn. Fern has a purr bigger than she is, and a tail she wraps around the legs of anyone who walks past. Martha S. is constantly cleaning herself with her tongue. She's very clean, for a barn cat.I love the descriptions! I do. Overall, I thought the writing was great in this one. And I'd definitely recommend it.
© Becky Laney of Young Readers
1 comment:
That sounds very cute. I'll have to keep it in mind for my niece's little boy who, for whatever reason, is wild about pigs. If you're in the market for a children's book on friends, take a look at Sewing a Friendship by 10-year-old Natalie Tinti. It's got great life lessons about not judging people ahead of time or on what you've heard, that real problems do occur in life -- and can be solved.
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