In for Winter, Out for Spring

In for Winter, Out for Spring

Author: Arnold Adoff

Illustrator: Jerry Pinkney

Genre: Poetry

Major Awards: None

Grade Level: Pre-K-3

Summary: This book contains a collection of poetry following a young girl named Rebecca through a year (winter to winter). Each poem is written from her point of view, describing her experiences throughout the different seasons. She is not the biggest fan of winter, but loves the spring and summer. Some of her experiences include baking with her family during the winter, interactions with animals (i.e. finding a stray dog, seeing a bird hit the window, releasing a butterfly that came into the house), and playing with her brother.

Evaluation: Although the book's poems are not that difficult for young children to understand and the illustrations are large and beautiful, I would not use this book in my class. The formatting of the words is very odd, with lots of spaces and line-skipping. Even I had a hard time reading it fluently. In a classroom full of young students who are still learning to read and still grasping concepts of print, I think this would be confusing. I think there are other books I could use to accomplish any type of lesson that I would need a childrens' poetry book for.

This book is best for young children because the poems are easily understandable and the pictures capture interest as well as provide information about what is going on in the poems. Since the poems are also written from the perspective of a young girl, younger children would obviously be able to connect their experience with hers better than older readers would.

The only lesson idea I can think of for this particular book is to teach about what goes on during different seasons, both indoors and out. I could help teach students about weather patterns during seasons, animals, and have them draw from their own experiences during different seasons. However, as I said above, I think there are better books that could accomplish this task.