Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building
Combining images of preschoolers at play with famous buildings all over the world, this lively picture book is great for sharing. On one left-hand page, kids stack up colorful paper cups to make towers (smaller, smaller / and growing taller); opposite is a full-page photo of the Petronas Twin Towers, among the world’s tallest buildings, built in 1998 in Malaysia from concrete, steel, and glass. On another spread, a little girl makes circular mud pies; opposite is a photo of an earthen New Gourna Village in Egypt, and the note tells how the village combines earth, water, sun, air, traditional design, sensitivity to climate, and imagination. One environmentally focused page shows kids building a structure with paper tubes and reusable cardboard; opposite is the Paper Tube School in China, where teachers and students helped construct a temporary school out of recycled paper and plywood after an earthquake. Older children will turn to the detailed back matter that talks about each building and its architect, and a great quote from Frank Gehry sums up the connections: Creativity is about play. Preschool-Grade 3. --Hazel Rochman