Picture a Tree

by Barbara Reid, Barbara Reid (Illustrator)

Overview

"Picture a tree—what do YOU see? Picture a tree, from every season, and from every angle. These wondrous beings give shade and shelter. Now look again. Look closer. The possibilities are endless." In this gorgeous new picture book, Barbara Reid brings her vision, her craft, and her signature Plasticine artwork to the subject of trees. Each page is a celebration, and you will never look at trees in quite the same way again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807565261
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Barbara Reid is an award-winning author-illustrator best known for her work in plasticine. Her previous Whitman titles include Fox Walked Alone and Perfect Snow. She lives in Toronto, Canada. Barbara Reid is an award-winning author-illustrator best known for her work in Plasticine. Her previous Whitman titles include Fox Walked Alone and Perfect Snow. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Editorial Reviews

"The vibrant pictures will draw in readers, while the text will encourage them to view the world in a different way." School Library Journal, April 1, 2013

"From striking double-page spreads to inviting endpapers, these delightful illustrations reward close attention with clever details. Recommended for tree-themed story hours, curriculum units, and art classes, here's a picture book for all seasons." Starred Review, Booklist, February 15, 2013

"The Plasticine is expressive, detailed and gestural, with emotions showing on each face and careful craft in even the tiniest leaf and twig." Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2013

"The plasticine medium is both inviting and kinetic, inspiring readers to themselves roll, smear, layer, mix, scratch, and dimple. The premise here is original; the artistry, stunning. The forty value-added vignettes on the endpapers make us reluctant to close the book." Starred Review, The Horn Book Magazine, May/June 2013

From the Publisher

Canadian author-illustrator Barbara Reid offers a love song to trees. It begins in winter with barren branches that are not so barren at all, once one really looks. From a child's perspective, such outspread arms can fill the sky...or hold clouds, not to mention winter birds perching into the wind. As the seasons change, the barren arms blossom with the first "drops of color...then all the art supplies at once." Reid's art classroom kids have fun slapping paint as fast as possible to keep up with nature's spring show. Her full summer images are equally evocative: trees transformed into tunnels over a rainy afternoon's street of cozy homes; an ocean of trees seen from a high rise perspective. Then ice cream summer segues into autumn's "wild good-bye party" of colored leaves—eventually completing the year's cycle with a return to winter's evergreens wearing their cold-weather "snowsuits." Here, Reid cleverly ends her book in a bedtime story mood as, "Every winter tree holds spring, sleeping like a baby." Reid's images are created by using Plasticine, shaped and pressed onto illustration board, then painted—resulting in a sculptural, bas relief 3D effect. It is a lovely book that grows with repeated readings and picture admiration, and the reinforced binding will stretch this life. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

PreS-Gr 2—Viewers are invited to think about how trees can be pictured: as a drawing on the sky, a skeleton, a tunnel, an ocean, a pirate ship, and more. Reid's Plasticine illustrations are remarkable. They are highly detailed and intricately developed, with layers of texture and color built into multidimensioned insets and spreads. The book is not a guide to learning about trees but rather a lyrical request to explore them in our personal worlds. While the trees depicted are never named, the illustrations contain enough detail for children to identify them with a field guide. The endpapers set the stage with numerous small portraits of trees, the limbs, leaves, and other details. The vibrant pictures will draw in readers, while the text will encourage them to view the world in a different way.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

School Library Journal

Master of Plasticine Reid returns with a celebration of trees and the people who love them. "There is more than one way to picture a tree." So begins Reid's sparsely written, lushly illustrated paean to trees. Written in the second person, the narrator allows readers to imagine trees in many different ways: from branches "drawing" in the sky to a tunnel of trees or an ocean of trees and anything in between. Though the gentle words will encourage readers to slow down and think about what they love about trees, it's the art that's the star here. The Plasticine is expressive, detailed and gestural, with emotions showing on each face and careful craft in even the tiniest leaf and twig. The background of each spread has been smoothed and textured, colored and filled with birds, leaves and airplanes. Readers will marvel at the amazing details she includes on each human and animal form--earrings, straw hats, melting ice cream--even eye-rolling teenage boys! The story arc takes readers from late spring to winter and through time. One spectacular double-page spread shows a modern barefooted child in a tree, but the reflection is an old-fashioned reader in socks wearing a rucksack. The varying perspectives shown make this a special book indeed. For Arbor Day and every day. (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews