Book of Fruit

School Library Journal

PreS-K-A visual introduction to fruit and the plants on which they grow. Fourteen entries (one per double-page spread) show the fruit in a still-life setting, in its natural landscape, and a close-up view of it on a branch or vine. This idea of context sets the book apart from Bruce McMillan's Growing Colors (Lothrop, 1988) and Lois Ehlert's Eating the Alphabet (Harcourt, 1989). The hand-tinted photographs are sophisticated mood pieces in soft muted colors with an impressionistic quality. Overall composition is a bit uneven. Some of the still lifes are striking; other photos are undistinguished and occasionally difficult to decipher, especially when the technique gets in the way and creates a dark fuzzy image. Despite this unevenness, the concept book is worth sharing with young children.-Alexandra Marris, Rochester Public Library, NY

Hazel Rochman

With the beauty of classic still-life painting and the immediacy of the simplest concept book, Lember's hand-tinted, full-color photographs show 14 fruits and where they grow. On the left-hand page is the picture of a luscious fruit, just picked and ready to eata furry peach, a bunch of bananas, a bowl of cranberries, etc. On the right-hand page is a landscape photo of where the fruit growsa peach orchard, banana plantation, cranberry bogand an inset close-up of the fruit on the vine. The landscapes are the least interesting, blurry and ill-defined. But the minimal text is precise: one word for the name of the fruit, two words for where it grows. You notice the amazing shape and texture of a single orange, the detail of four cherries in a big wooden bowl. Without being aware of it, in the most natural way, kids will observe shape, size, color, and relationship in a world that's ordinary and amazing.