PlayBac

Picture books can be so amazing. This book is a well-designed photographic exploration of shapes in nature. Each two page spread features a shape or pattern, with bright and clear photographs that capture different examples of that specific element. For example, for the triangle there are photographs of a dog's ear, a shark's fin, a mountain peak, and seashells. The photographs are set off on a colored background or overlap each other. Minimal text accompanies the pictures, sometimes in rhyme, always with a light-hearted humor. Each of the creatures or plants are labeled. The implementation is simple and clever, inviting children to compare and contrast, to analyze some of the surprising similarities among very different objects, and to embrace the beauty of nature. This would be a great tie-in to geometry lessons, to show students that the natural world generates the shapes and patterns that we study in the classroom. It's also a wonderful picture book to read to children at home, with bright pages and text that will appeal to children from a range of ages.… (meer)