Picture Books: Lois Ehlert

This week I picked out a bunch of books by Lois Ehlert. I was immediately attracted to her books on the shelves because of the bright and beautiful art. I picked out about five books of hers  that corresponded along a nature theme (I like nature)and read them to girler. Most of them weren't very successful. While the art in her books is beautiful and I love how it uses natural elements like leaves, bugs, and animals as inspiration, I felt like her stories were kind of boring. In addition her prose isn't very lyrical or rhythmic. I find that I prefer picture books that have a certain rhythm to them. They don't have to rhyme, but I enjoy that natural pause in the text that indicates it is time to turn the page. So below are my two favorite books I read of hers.

Waiting for Wings
Waiting for wings tells the story of a caterpillars transformation to a butterfly. It is very much like A Very Hungry Caterpillar, but is more detailed about the process of becoming a butterfly. It follows the life cycle of a Caterpillar from egg to butterfly, but continues the story until that butterfly lays its own eggs, completing the life cycle. The text in this picture book was one of her more poetical ones, and I enjoyed it a lot.

 The author usually includes some factual information about the nature topics contained in the story. There are two color pages at the end dedicated to this information. One page showed each type of butterfly that appeared in the book and labels them. The second page showed each type of flower that appeared in the book and labeled them. I would show these two pages to girler as she laid on her tummy and she would just stare at all the beautiful and interesting colors.

Nuts to You

Tells the story of an active squirrel that scampers around outside an apartment in the city. The narrator accidentally allows the squirrel in her window, and so has to lure the creature back outside with food. The story was simple and short. It was not very lyrical, but not long winded enough to get boring like several of her other books. I also very much enjoyed the nature artwork in this book.

The end of this book contained quite a bit of factual information about squirrels and their habitats and etc.