Looking Closely Through the Forest

Looking Closely Through the Forest
By Frank Serafini

There are times when you are grateful for other people's mistakes, because they lead you places you otherwise might not have been. I am so glad someone misplaced this book! Clearly nonfiction, this book was erroneously placed in fiction picture books A section. Haphazardly they did this, but I am grateful!

Frank Serafini is apparently a talented person whose books range from his looking closely series to professional books about using reading workshop in the classroom. For some reason, that he is so knowledgeable about something as useful as reading workshop, and also created such a great nonfiction book with his own photographs, is intriguing. I would like to read more. Obviously he is talented!

Looking closely through the forest is a gem! All objects of the forest, you first see only a small orange-sized circle of the item surrounded by an otherwise black page. Your child and you get to guess before turning the page to see the whole picture revealed. Along with the entire gorgeous photograph revealed there are also a few paragraphs with interesting basic information about the object and its place in the forest. Did you know that the black marks on an Aspen tree are called beards and they mark where former branches once grew? My children were thrilled they could recognize the small circular view prior to viewing the entire picture of the aspen tree! They also now know it is called an aspen tree, not just the tree with the white bark.

I love this book for the thinking it creates, the interactions that can occur, and of course the broadening of knowledge. We can't wait to read Looking Closely Across the Desert!