Farm
Kindergarten-Grade 3—A husband and wife and their two children live on a farm. The heavily illustrated narrative, which begins in March and ends in November, describes how each season brings different sights, smells, and activities. Using a variety of machinery, the farmers prepare for planting, harvesting, and storing crops of feed corn. The children are involved in growing and maintaining a smaller garden of vegetables and feeding the cows and chickens. As the weather becomes warmer, there is time to relax on a tire swing or fish in a creek, but the family will have to make trips into town for supplies and business transactions. While they have plenty to eat, young readers will glimpse some of the hardships of their life. Weather can delay a farmer's plans and nearby wildlife means danger for some of the barnyard animals. The watercolor and pencil artwork, highlighting the open skies and vast prairie fields, complements the text and changes from browns to greens as the temperature rises and falls. Although the text is too long for a read-aloud, and the small images are best appreciated one-on-one, Cooper's book will give children a comprehensive view of farm life, both visually and textually.—Tanya Boudreau, Cold Lake Public Library, AB, CanadaCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.