Raccoons and Ripe Corn

Washington Post Book World

Over the years Jim Arnosky has established himself as Nature's unofficial portrait painter....A lovely book ideal for sharing with preschoolers.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

On an autumn night, nature sends dry, yellow leaves and raccoons from a tree near the farm to the cornfield. The corn is ripe and the raccoons feast on the sweet kernels. The night passes, and the moon, an owl and the raccoons retreat before sunrise. Green husks, bare ears and half-eaten corn are left scattered among the fallen leaves. Arnosky's photograph-like depiction of nature allows the smallest of life-forms and the largest of natural phenomena to participate in one uniform processearth and sky, autumn winds and nocturnal animals, hunger and eating are all parts of nature's weaving. Fall colors of brown and yellow take on a softened, pastel look in the realistic night setting, and accurate details (the moonlight reflected in raccoon eyes) give readers a good picture of one night's occurrence. But a question remains: Can a stalk of corn really support a small but weighty-looking owl? Ages 3-8. (September)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3 Another brief encounter with wildlife for young children from this naturalist-artist, as a mother raccoon and two older kits come in autumn dusk to a farmer's field, enjoy a star-lit romp and feed, then skulk off at dawn. A trail of fall leaves across the title pages leads to 11 double-spreads of open pencil sketches and color washes of woods and farm. Skeins of gray-green stalks stretch against the hazy blue sky of a full moon; it is light enough to spot a bat, mouse, owl, wooly-bear caterpillar, or pawprints in the furrows. Simple declarative sentences appear in large print. The text is one that even kindergarten readers can try, and they will enjoy such details as that the tree behind which the raccoons wait before their raid is the same one past which they exit, its hollow now filled by the sleeping owl. The book is so simpleyet it has long-range, satisfying, repeated appeal for the youngest patrons. Ruth M. McConnell, San Antonio Public Library