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Summary
Summary
Celebrate the cycle of the day, as the earth turnes to and then away from the sun, and meet a wide array of animals from America's east coast to the west as they work and rest, eat and play, just as humans do.
Jean Craighead George's lyrical greeting to the day becomes a sweeping panorama of the American countryside with Wendell Minor's evocative, dramatic paintings.
Good morning, the dawn,when the earth is turning from night to day
and waking begins. Newbery Medalist Jean Craighead George's lyric greeting to the day celebrates how the earth turns to and then away from the sun. Starting at dawn on the East Coast, then moving to afternoon in the Midwest, and finally evening in the West, young readers will meet a wide array of animals at work, rest, and play as the day progresses across America. With evocative, dramatic paintings by distinguished artist Wendell Minor, this stunning picture book provides a sweeping panorama of the American countryside as well as a remarkable look at how an animal's day parallels our own.
00 Kansas Bill Martin, Jr. Picture Book Award Masterlist
Author Notes
Jean Craighead George was born on July 2, 1919 in Washington, D.C. She received degrees in English and science from Pennsylvania State University. She began her career as a reporter for the International News Service. In the 1940s she was a member of the White House press corps for The Washington Post.
During her lifetime, she wrote over 100 novels including My Side of the Mountain, which was a 1960 Newbery Honor Book, On the Far Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves, which won the Newbery Medal, Julie, and Julie's Wolf Pack. She also wrote two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography entitled Journey Inward. In 1991, she became the first winner of the School Library Media Section of the New York Library Association's Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature. She died on May 15, 2012 at the age of 92.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-From dawn on the east coast to sunset on the west, a variety of animals go about their daily lives. The text alternates between greetings defining the time of day ("Good noon, the noon,/when the earth has turned full face to the sun/and siesta is here") and simple sentences describing the appropriate activities: "The antelopes doze./The lizard hides." Despite a few difficult words, beginning readers might join in decoding these lyrical verses. Each full-page (and sometimes double-page) painting provides a close-up of an animal, set in a suitable landscape. The pictures are inviting, combining soft textures and vibrant colors, from the cardinal's scarlet feathers to the turquoise Arizona and Colorado skies. Endnotes name each creature and its location, so readers can follow along as the day progresses and the settings move farther west, from Maine to California and returning to Maine as the sun rises again on the final page. In this introduction to the nature-book genre, the portraits are realistic and accurate, but the emphasis is on visual appeal: there are several family groups, and the owlet, raccoon, and seal could model for Steiff.-Patricia Lothrop-Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In precise, lyrical language George celebrates the daily activities of animals from dawn to dusk. When morning comes, "the stork puts down his other foot./ The killdeer stretches her white-striped wings,/ and the cardinal sings,/ `Good morning, the sun. Cheer, Cheer.' " Concrete details are cradled in language that evokes the turning of the earth from one day to the next, placing the animals' specific activities in a wider context: "The earth has turned from dawn to light/ and work begins./ The lark feeds her nestlings./ The eagle goes hunting..../ and the bees buzz their message, `Work, Work.' " Minor, previously paired with George for Arctic Son, offers splendid views of the countryside from Maine to the Pacific and back again. His paintings show bats in the Sonora Desert, bison in the Great Plains and Canadian geese in the Rocky Mountains. Not all the creatures George mentions fit into the serenely composed landscapes or appear in the occasional facing silhouettes; on the other hand, some pictured animals are not named in the text (endnotes, however, identify sites and species). The result is a more challenging offering than the usual nature book. Few children will be able to resist George's lullaby of animals or Minor's appealing cover portrait of a raccoon who seems to be just begging for a turn of the page. Ages 3-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
George's rhythmic, lyrical text greets each stage of the day and describes the activities of various animals as they wake, work, play, and rest. Minor's lushly detailed paintings capture the beauty of both animals and landscape, elucidating the subtle journey the book makes from east coast to west. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
As the earth turns from day to night, George (Julie's Wolf Pack, 1997, etc.) honors creatures of the American landscape. From sunrise to sundown, flies bite, birds alight, bison laze, elk graze, bats careen, and magpies preen, as they make their way through the course of a day. From Maine to California and everywhere in between, animals welcome morning, noon, evening, and night. The Eastern Piedmont cardinal's ``Cheer, cheer'' ushers in sunrise; at high noon, antelopes doze and ground squirrels burrow in Arizona; the Pacific Coast owlet sings, ``Who, the night, who, who'' at the close of day. With repetitive strains of poetry that mimic the rhythm of a day, George says, ``the earth keeps on turning, on turning, on turning.'' Precise horizontal paintings provide a mural of the country; while not all animals mentioned in the text are depicted, brief endnotes identify creatures and general locales by page number. (Picture book. 5-8)
