GREEN AS A BEAN

Kuskin offers a charming set of metaphorical musings connecting various qualities or traits with related objects or images in this imaginative display of wordplay. Her poetic text, previously published in 1960 with a different title and illustrations, is well-complemented in this version by glowing, double-page spreads featuring a wide-eyed little boy in round glasses. Each stanza follows the pattern of offering a hypothetical condition (being fierce, for example) and then asking the little boy what he (and the reader) would choose to be as a result of that attribute (a tiger or a dragon). The brief, fanciful poem explores several colors and other qualities, such as being bright or soft or loud, amplified by Iwai’s striking paintings in glowing jewel tones. Her illustrations show dragons in the clouds, dancing mice, roaring tigers and a final delicious view of the little boy reading the very same story, with his own image as the illustration. Preschoolers will enjoy this as a read-aloud, but it will also be used by teachers in the elementary grades for writing lessons on metaphor and imagery. (Picture book/poetry. 3-8)