Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature is a visual feast of colorful, mixed-media images and poetic descriptions that celebrate the most everyday and relatable aspects of nature. It's organized by seasons, and each double pages serves as a vignette of various animals and acts of nature that happen during that season -- from birds building nests and tadpoles hatching in ponds to gardening, wind, snow, fungi, bees, worms, and many other things that are accessible right outside our doors and windows. 

I think the illustrations are the best part, with their textures and color pallette, but the text also easily evokes the sights, sounds, and experience of being outdoors, using simple language. This book is fairly long (108 pages), and covers quite a few topics, but is also short enough to read in one sitting if a child has a long enough attention span. 

Scrounged From: Amazon (a Christmas present for our five-year-old)

Format: Hardcover
Author: Nicola Davies
Illustrator: Mark Hearld
Pages: 108
Content Advisory: None

More Reviews at Amazon

The Bee Book is a visually appealing introduction to bees, focusing on the honey bee, and emphasizing how important they are to the world.

I love the full-page illustrations with the lovely contrast of blue and yellow, and the way the information is spread out -- the book covers a lot of bee-ish topics without becoming too verbose about any of them. (And for what it's worth, I think they hit the sweet spot as far as bee-related puns go -- a couple at appropriate times without overdoing it.)

We learn about the life cycle of the honeybee as well as the different roles of each type within the hive. I had no idea that worker bees' lives and tasks were so well organized based on age. At the end of the book are some ideas for ways to help bee populations such as making a "bee hotel" and planting more flowers. 

(Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley (and later Amazon)

Format: Kindle
Author/illustrator: Charlotte Milner
Pages: 48
Content Advisory: None

More Reviews at Amazon

The Golden Glow is a story about a fox who loves botany (originally published in French). One day he goes off in search of "the golden glow" -- a very rare flower, which (he is eventually told) can only be found at the very top of the mountain. 

The story takes its time in reaching this destination (though it's not draggy or overly wordy), including informational pages here and there featuring topics such as items for hiking preparedness, common flowers, trees, mountain elevation zones, etc.

I liked the illustrations, especially the color palette, though the "angular" way that most things are drawn is interesting considering how sleekness and curves seem to be the order of the day.

Ultimately I appreciated the message of the story, which is that nature appreciation doesn't need to mean possessing everything we find, especially items that are rare and beautiful. I also thought this story avoided the common pitfall of presenting important ideas in a didactic way. 

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley

Format: Kindle
Author/illustrator: Benjamin Flouw
Pages: 48
Content Advisory: None

More Reviews at Amazon

Swirl by Swirl uses bold, detailed illustrations and simple, poetic text to show us a variety of swirls and spirals in nature, and some of the places they are found. From ferns and flower petals to octopus arms and waves, this pattern shows up over and over again, and different descriptive and action words accompany it on each page.

This would make a great introduction (or follow-up) to Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci (see our review here), which covers this topic with more of a focus on the math, as well as on Fibonacci himself.

This book does bring up Fibonacci in the informational page at the end, but overall it focuses more on the beauty, ubiquity, and different forms of the spiral pattern rather than the math behind it (not to imply that these things are mutually exclusive).

Scrounged From: Our local library

Format: Hardcover
Author: Joyce Sidman
Illustrator: Beth Krommes
Pages: 40
Content Advisory: None

More Reviews at Amazon

Since we live in a Northern state with long winters and plenty of woods around, Over and Under the Snow is a very relevent book for our climate, but is still an appealing nature book for any child.

The narrative follows a child and parent skiing through the woods, and continually contrasts the visible world that is over the snow with a "hidden kingdom" under the snow, where some animals hibernate, while others eat, sleep, and even make tunnels.

From bull frogs to queen bees, and from deer mice to bears, we are shown a variety of different creatures that spend the winter under the snow, as well as others that spend it above, such as deer and foxes. 

One of the best things about this book is the artwork -- lots of earth tones matched with cool wintery blues, which provide a nice contrast to the bright red fox. 

At the end the book gives a brief description of each animal mentioned, as well as a list of suggestions for further reading.

Scrounged From: Our local bookstore

Format: Paperback
Author: Kate Messner
Illustrator: Christopher Silas Neal
Pages: 44
Content Advisory: None

More Reviews at Amazon