HELLO, MEADOW!

Rhymes and pictures urge us to protect the fragility of deceptively sturdy-looking, wildlife-rich meadows.

As in Eat Up, Bear! (2021), author and illustrator again team up to show small folks—and their parents—how to enjoy nature without harming it. The opening spread shows heedless human behavior (littering, flower-picking) in a lovely natural site, but the rest of the book instructs readers how to treat flora and fauna with respect (staying on the trail, observing wildlife from a distance). A rocking, slightly evolving refrain appears on most spreads: “Hello, Meadow! How are you? / We can help our meadows, too!” The simply drawn, brightly hued illustrations are graced with a multitude of accurately depicted plants and animals: red-shouldered hawk, Turk’s-cap lilies, lupine, blue flags, milkweed, monarch butterflies, red-winged blackbird, and much more (though none are identified as such in the text). The friendly mouse on the cover can be spotted on every page, and in the final spread, the very people who were endangering the meadow back at the start are now enjoying the same activities without risking harm to the environment. The last couplet underscores the point: “Every grown-up, every child, / can help keep meadows strong and wild.” Human characters vary in skin color and age, from a bespectacled, light-skinned older adult to a brown-skinned infant in a carrier. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An early, age-appropriate lesson in how to appreciate the natural world.