Review by Booklist Review
This cheerful picture book celebrates the season in pithy, rhyming phrases and sunny artwork. With only a few words on each double-page spread, the text features apt expressions that are sometimes childlike or inventive, such as Sunning, warming, thunderstorming and Biking, blading, lemonading. Stead's paintings have an informal air that suits the text. A series of nicely composed, horizontal paintings portray children enjoying the pleasures of the season, from baseball to hopscotch to planting; they create a sense of motion as well as a sense of joy. A fine seasonal read-aloud choice for story programs or lap-sit sessions. --Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-Enliven your theme lists for seasons, spring, verbs, or just fun with this cheerful picture book. Spring ends with "ing," and Raczka takes children from winter's end to summer's beginning with several befitting "ing" words. From "Melting, dripping, cold's grip slipping" to "buzzing, humming-summer's coming!" readers will remember all of the things they love to do when the weather changes. Using a spring palette, Stead's paintings add an entertaining element and useful clarification to the active text. "Trees leaf-outing" and "lemonading" provide humor and fit the rhyme pattern but might hamper the book's value as a verb-teaching tool. The book includes a four-question rhyming quiz that has the same uplifting spirit as the book.-June Wolfe, Bushnell-Sage Library, Sheffield, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Vibrantly colored drawings illustrate the many spring activities that end in -ing (thunderstorming, hatching, mowing, etc.). Double-page spreads splashed with primary and secondary colors provide a brilliant backdrop for the simple rhyming text that showcases how nature, people, and animals prepare for and subsequently enjoy the splendors of spring. A fill-in-the-blanks seasons quiz is included. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Winter's thaw brings numerous activities, in pictures and verse. Raczka's catchy rhyming text is told mostly in gerunds ("sunning, warming, thunderstorming"), and Stead offers simple pleasant acrylic paintings for each. In the beginning, a snowman is melting as two children catch the drips from an icy tree in their mittens. There's also baseball, a lemonade stand, working in a garden, etc. At times, Raczka works some fun linguistic twists--"trees leaf-outing"--to keep his rhyme going. And maintaining the "ing" allows him to build to the appropriate finale, "spring," with an accompanying two-page illustration of a verdant field studded with frolicking children and bright flowers, birds, butterflies and bees. The minimum of words should make this more inviting to its very young target audience, while the pictures might stimulate creative play. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
