Ivy in Bloom

My thoughts:

This is a cute book. The illustrations are nice and colorful. We see a little girl experiencing a cold, snowy winter. Like so many other children who live in areas with winters like this, it is a time a where you are either bundled up or staring out the window hoping for sunshine.

In Ohio, where I live, I remember the cold winters and now watch my children experience this every year. This book brought back memories of my childhood. My sister and I would get bundled up to out and play. It would take quite some time to put on all layers it took to please my mother. When we finally breached the doors and made to the outside, we wouldn't last long. Twenty minutes top and we were back in our house, layers off and hanging over top of the wood burner waiting to dry while we sucked down hot chocolate. As soon as we were warm, and the clothes were dry, back out the door we went for another round of freezing our rumps off. Rinse and repeat. :)

This is a cute book. It is a poem, or more group of poems, illustrated to tell a story. I do feel that some of the words are a bit advanced for the the younger part of the “5 and up” age recommendations. On the other hand, I feel the story is too short for readers over the age of nine, maybe even younger. There was an instance where a passage stopped mid sentence and continued on the next page. This could cause confusion to early readers who are just beginning to learn proper sentence structure and punctuation. My seven year old, who is an advanced reader for his age, liked this, but I had to explain the writing style to him. I do really like the illustrations. 

Recommendation:

This is not a bad book. This is a book I would read WITH my younger reader to avoid confusion about proper grammar and punctuation.

I recieved this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.