ALL AROUND THE SEASONS

A rhyming salute to the four seasons. Beginning with spring, a parade of multiethnic children leads readers through a stereotypical suburban year in a northern clime: hatching chicks, melting snow, gardening, playing outside, swimming, corn-on-the-cob, kites, leaves, Halloween candy, snow, holidays and hot chocolate. The poem scans fairly well, with rhymes that work: “Backyard explorers, / Bugs in a jar. / An old cardboard box / Is a speeedy sports car.” However, the book both begins and ends abruptly— it would have benefited from a few verses to tie the year together. The acrylic-and-pencil illustrations follow the text exactly and clearly show the children enjoying the seasons, each in its own turn. While the verses are made for reading aloud, the details in the artwork will limit the size of the group. Lacking the flare and humor of the stories featuring Saltzberg’s usual characters (hamster Stanley and piglet Cornelius P. Mud), this rhyming look at the seasons falls a little flat. (Picture book. 2-5)