Illustrator Girard's visually striking work suffers from uninspired text.

The chunky compilation features crisp lines and patterns. Bare of references to Girard's career, the introduction seeks to provide a total visual experience rather than an introduction to the artist. Slight rhyming phrases detract rather than enhance, implying relationships that don't exist. “A daisy in the garden, / green and growing; / multi-colored friends, / where are they going?” illustrates, first, a stylized daisy-woman and then a tiny army of three-dimensional figures, for instance. The flimsy spine proves too weak to support repeated readings of the 58-page book. Some descriptions fail to identify the shades featured in the illustrations (this is a book about colors), and the text itself is often confusing, peppered with oddly placed commas. “Alexander Girard, shows us colors in this book.”  

In this “pull-the-tab book about the seasons,” a chick and a bluebird visit the same tree throughout the year.

Readers pull none-too-sturdy sliding panels to alter the tree’s appearance. In the four internal double-page spreads, autumn leaves fall off the tree, snow covers it, blossoms speckle it, and apples change from green to red in this before-and-after interactive feature. The graphically flat art in springtime colors is rather fussy; the striped backgrounds resembling wallpaper patterns in various muted hues are an odd choice for these outdoor scenes. The rhyming verse, with stilted line breaks, describes the birds’ reactions to the changing seasons: “Chick Pea and Sweet Pea look up and see / new leaves and flowers all over the tree! / But the flowers drop their petals. / They’re starting to fall. / And Chick Pea is trying to / catch them all.” The pull-tab also reveals an additional couplet in which an unseen narrator reassures the critters and gives hints as to what the duo will see next season. While is does not point to any choking hazards, the fine print on the back of the book states that it is “Not suitable for children under 3 years of age.”