SILVER SEEDS

It’s hard not to like a book so deeply thought out in concept. This collection of acrostic poetry, in which the first letter of each line of a poem forms the word that is its subject, also moves from dawn till bedtime. Two button-nosed, doll-like children play in this landscape. Each double-paged spread contains a poem superimposed on the illustration, and the one-word title is scattered on the image like pebbles. For example, “Loose brown parachute / Escaping / And / Floating on puffs of air” is on a page where floating leaves fill the space. The word “leaf” floats there, too, and a small girl stands among the leaves as the viewer looks down as if from a treetop. The flowers, hills, fog, and stars are shown in saturated but fuzzy swathes of soft-edged color, perhaps computer-produced, and the topics range from sun to shadow, hummingbird to clouds. Pleasant enough. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)