Sunday, March 12, 2017

Round

Round. Joyce Sidman. 2017. HMH. 32 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: I love round things. I like to feel their smoothness. My hands want to reach around their curves. I love to see round things grow. Some start out round...like a seed or an egg, waiting to hatch.

Premise/plot: A thought-provoking concept book about all things round--that's how I would describe Joyce Sidman's latest picture book.

My thoughts: I was not expecting this one to be so lovely. I was expecting it to be, well, your average every day concept book. The illustrations help make this one stand out as great, in my opinion. The illustrations pay tribute to ROUND just as much as the text. More so, in some ways since the text only mentions a few things, and, the illustrations hide a lot. The text is poetic without being rhyme-y. It isn't trying too hard to be A POEM. And because of its more relaxed structure, it just felt natural and right.
I love how water can be round,
gathered in beads of silver...
or falling in wet splats,
leaving circles of ripples behind.
I love the cover as well. My favorite illustration may just be the young girl curled up in a ball--almost in a nest--reading books.

Text: 4 out of 5
Illustrations: 5 out of 5
Total: 9 out of 10
© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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