Dawn: Watch the World Awaken

PreS-Gr 3–From Martin (We Are Starlings), a luminous book that is all about the world at the beginning of the day. Each picture has a single word to describe the image. Each beautiful water color illustration shows the plants and animals of a woodland wetland and how each of them starts the day. A frog jumps, a deer peeps between the trunks of trees, a spider web catches the dew, a hummingbird gathers nectar. There isn’t a story that links the pictures, but rather a place, giving readers opportunities to discuss the images and the words to develop meaning and shades of meaning of the words. This is a quiet, peaceful beginning to the day, with a deep appreciation for the beauty of all the plants and animals and would be an excellent read-aloud for a study of wetlands or ecosystems in general. It also offers opportunities to compare what these moments would be like at the end of a day.