"Nature in the Neighborhood" is a informative, detailed tradebook describing the everyday habitats that lie before us in and around our neighborhoods. It paints a picture for young readers of an alive and vibrant community of insects (monarch butterflies, milk bugs), birds (blue jays, cardinals, kestrels), and every kind of plant and small mammal as they build their lives around the four seasons. The author, Gordon Morrison, also fills the pages with sidenotes along and around the page detailing each plant with greater focus, such as breeding habits, seasonal migration patterns of behavior, and where to find their natural habitats. All of this takes place in our neighborhoods around us, which we are reminded are natural habitats of their own. Young children would be fascinated as they can relate to all these discoveries in their own backyard, and it makes the science of natural habitats much more enticingly fascinating to younger readers. ( )

What a lovely book. I was impressed that the author is also the illustrator. The illustration in this book are amazing! He is able to convey so much movement and very realistic looking nature scenes. This book makes you want to go out and look for nature around your neighborhood which I think is exactly the point. ( )

This informational story picture book tells the story of a year and its seasonal changes in a neighborhood. The changing environmental conditions are described along with the organisms that inhabit the neighborhood and their activity across seasons. The book includes captions that give factual information about the animals in the text. The captions are accompanied by sketches that identify the organisms. The text is supported by illustrations portraying the neighborhood environment. The scope and focus includes the subject matter already mentioned and the depth is moderate probably directed to a middle to upper middle school audience. The tone is somewhat poetic prose except in the captions where a neutral factual tone is used. No table of contents, glossary, or index is used, taking a narrative story book structure. No author information or accuracy qualifications are included. ( )