On Bird Hill

PreS-Gr 2—Featuring a single poem with a pleasing rhythm, this picture book opens at sunrise with the main character setting off on a walk with the dog. "As I was walking on Bird Hill,/Though it was day, the moon shone still." A fantastical aerial view of a sweeping hilly landscape shows a tiny moon still in the top left corner and the narrator and dog far away on the bottom right. Each subsequent spread presents two more lines from the poem that build on the lines that came before and work together with the art to bring readers closer into the scene. ("And on Bird Hill, I saw a tree.") From tree to trunk to limb to twig, readers are able to zoom in until they find a bird on a nest, and then even closer until, beneath the bird, the baby chick shows through the surface of its egg. Here the focus of the illustration pulls back, and the egg begins to hatch. The spread where the bird breaks through is left wordless, and at this point the book turns, putting the baby chick in charge of observing: "He saw the twig, limb, trunk, and tree,/And then he saw the moon…/…and me,/As I walked down Bird Hill." The book is done in spring colors, and its bright visual design, interesting perspectives, and surprising details offer much to observe and ponder.