Over in the Meadow

Over in the Meadow by Thornhill, Jan. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781897066089.

Jan Thornhills trademark ingenuity brings this well-loved 19th century rhyme to a new audience in a captivating and original way. Jan has created a magical imaginary world made up of everyday objects: A forest of broccoli, a beaver dam of pretzels, a dragonfly with paperclip wings... Who could have thought berries, twist-ties, light bulbs, garden gloves, and rubber bands could be transformed into such unimagined delights? As always with Jan Thornhills books, young readers can pore for hours over the intricacies of a seemingly simple story. Not only will they learn about counting, rhyming, animals, and nature, but kids will also delight in picking out recognizable everyday objects used in ingenious new ways in the illustrations on these pages. Pages at the back of the book show the original elements used in the creation of the illustrations—readers can then go back and play eye-spy. Hand-drawn text with some rebus elements help the youngest reader to learn and delight in words. Ten spreads show different parts of the meadow and introduce a different animal and a new action verb.