There Was a Tree

PreS-Gr 1–In this illustrated version of a traditional cumulative song, Isadora sets the “hole in the ground and the tree in the hole” in Africa and uses her iconic collage-style illustrations to tell the story of a bug on a wing of a chick in an egg… and green grass growing all around, each page telling one of the verses. The rebus icons that the publisher’s notes call “an enjoyable and easy way to follow along” are a clumsily introduced distraction. The music and lyrics on the last page take the lazy way out by providing four numbered verses followed by the dictate to “add a new phrase each time until the final verse,” and then provides the last, numbered 9. Isadora’s artwork is consistently attractive and includes some animals native to the setting, but they are not emphasized in any way, adding to the generic tone and losing an opportunity to extend and deepen the material. Susan K. Mitchell’s Rainforest Grew All Around (Sylvan Dell, 2007) is a better choice.–Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick’s Catholic School, Charlotte, NC