Nature is an Artist is a toddler’s first canvas or a relaxing read

Storytime! It’s that time when pre-k or kindergarten kids need a story read to them. It’s the book that they look at or listen to as they’re winding down for the day, or just for a little bit. The text in great storytime books usually rhymes and has illustrations that are colorful and loaded corner to corner with various hues. Nature is an Artist is one of those storytime books. Its premise is as direct as the title and will have toddlers through kindergarten hopefully looking at the things around their outside world in a different way.

Once they open the book they’ll see a giant broccoli-like creature leading some students, hand-in-hand, whilst holding a leaf that’s probably a paintbrush. After thinking about it for a moment, our broccoli friend is most likely nature, and quickly we’ll see her using a chisel as she molds rock and clay every day. The patterns that she makes are the bread that’s left out to bake. Nature is an Artist is page to page with cute four-line stanzas that young audiences will find relaxing.

The combination of dreamy, lyrical poetry that’s set against corner to corner softly painted colors will meld those jittery-filled toddlers into small humans who are ready to listen, or possibly sleep. Nature is an Artist is playful and willingly takes on the visage of the person who is reading it. When you read it in a very calm manner, using those dulcet tones that evoke your inner books-on-tape persona, then it’s a good night book. If you were to amp up the energy by just a little bit, but not too much, then the book acts as a segue to another activity.

As long as your audience is a toddler through kindergarten person they’ll enjoy the book. It serves as a primer for nature’s palette that could make young kids look at the world in a different manner. When I was in middle school a teacher told me that a river or the ocean would never be the same as I just saw it. At the time I was too young to fully understand the immediate meaning because I said that it’s still a river and it’ll always be a river.

That is true, but the rocks that I stepped on that moved, or the sticks that went further downstream have made that river, the one that I just walked in, never the exact same. Yeah, it was all Matrix-y and introduced elements of the Butterfly effect that I was too young to initially get. However, I did embrace the lesson about it shortly after it was said and it helped me to appreciate the concept of living in the moment.

Every kid who experiences Nature is an Artist won’t initially walk away from the book as if they’ve just discovered the beauty around them. Simply treat the book as a relaxing treat that the kids will have while you read to them and when, or if they go on to treat things a little better or spend more time outdoors then so much the better.

Nature is an Artist is by Jennifer Lavallee with illustrations by Natalia Colombo and is available on Greystone Kids, an imprint of Greystone Books.

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