Taking Time

February 15, 2020
Children around the globe marvel at the simple, stunning beauty encountered in moments of everyday life. Author/illustrator Loring-Fisher has created something truly special with this picture book. Each double-page spread includes one line of text and a stunning mixed-media illustration. The illustrations are deeply saturated with color and respectful in their inclusive representations of multicultural children and the cultures, landscapes, and living creatures that make up their sensory worlds. The text on adjacent spreads form couplets, creating a read-aloud experience that is pleasing for both reader and listeners: "Taking time to listen to a bird's song on the breeze. / Taking time to gather up the blossom dancing free." The final spread shows all of the children sharing their wonderings, playing peacefully together in a beautiful green space. This image and the closing line, "Taking time to cherish you, and also cherish me," provide a hopeful close to the book's celebration of the natural, spontaneous mindfulness of children. The endpapers extend the options for interactivity by encouraging readers to match small details from the illustrations with each child's home, including Alaska, Ecuador, the U.K., Norway, Russia, Egypt, Tanzania, India, Nepal, China, and Japan. Adults will benefit every bit as much as young readers (if not more!) from these reminders to pause and notice. A must-have for anyone sharing books with young children--simply exquisite. (Picture book. 3-9)

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March 1, 2020

PreS-Gr 1-Mixed-media illustrations offer a soft focus view of children in multiple environs around the world. In specific landscapes, each child is shown doing something different. One child delicately smiles and snuggles a husky dog in the snow, while another gazes at a flock of jungle parrots. One child rides a camel; another one watches women in ankle-length dresses fish with nets at the shore. Each page provides one sentence that begins "Taking time to," and the final celebration page is filled with all the children under a blossoming tree, taking time to "cherish you, and also cherish me." VERDICT The story celebrates the virtues of various places. Teachers can encourage students to describe specific things that bring them joy.-Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 9, 2020
The phrase “taking time to” begins each line of this book’s rhyming verse, a gentle reminder to stop and appreciate the natural world. Digital spreads by Loring-Fisher (Maisie’s Scrapbook) place children of varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds among misty planes of texture and pattern. An orange and black bird perches in a tree, its beak open. “Taking time to listen to/ a bird’s song on the breeze,” the poet writes, as a girl with brown skin and a long black braid looks up, the basket in her hand forgotten. Another child stands under a cherry tree whose petals fall like snow: “Taking time to gather up the blossom dancing free.” Still another stands with a seashell to their ear, “Taking time to imagine/ the deep sounds of the sea”; brightly clad figures wielding nets stand in the ocean beyond. Sources of light vary, too: a campfire, leaf-filtered sunlight, a curtain-framed window. Round-the-world books sometimes assume that a location in the English-speaking world is “home”; this one unites the children in a schoolyard that could be almost anywhere, and a world map identifies each child’s place of origin. Ages 5–8.

April 1, 2020
Preschool-G In Egypt's desert, snowy Alaska, mountainous Nepal, and Ecuador's jungles, children and adults marvel at the sights and wonders of our beautiful world, absorbing the smallest details that bring delight. This calm, poetic text encourages mindfulness and appreciation of our world, reminding us to stop, listen, observe, pay attention, and take time to . . . gather up cherry blossoms, hear a bird sing, snuggle a dog's furry coat, feel a cat purring, or watch a spider spin her web. Each child holds a keepsake, and readers can have fun identifying which one belongs to each child on the back endpapers. The front endpapers show a map of the world, identifying the various countries, but this geography lesson emphasizes the importance of cherishing our planet, others, and ourselves. The appealing artwork using mixed-media pastels is comprised of full-bleed double-page spreads illustrating children living in 11 countries. When life seems to move too fast, this book's message encourages all to slow down and take in the beauty in everything.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)