Candace Christiansen

In spring, a snapping turtle lays her eggs on the hillside beneath the tree. In autumn, leaves fall as squirrels scamper up the trunk carrying nuts. And on a winter night, a backdrop of twinkling stars shines through the branches. Each day, the tree changes with the purple and pink of a sunset or a nip of cold air. But the tree is more than a thing of beauty--its changes represent the passage of time in nature.

"Sky Tree" combines the artistic beauty and the scientific wonder of ever-changing show more nature into a satisfying experience for the soul and the mind.

Each page poses a discussion question, and at the back of the book is an explanation of how Thomas Locker created each beautiful oil painting. show less

I love Thomas Locker paintings. They are so wonderfully detailed. This year-long examination of a tree and the paintings it is built around informabout how a deciduous tree changes throughout the year to accomodate the changing seasons. The questions at the end are equally illuminating. It's a unusual and wonderful sort of story.

One snowy day an elderly woman, Sarah, watches children gathering at the bus stop. While they never seem to notice her, she notices them, especially one little boy who has no mittens. That night, Sarah knits the boy a pair of cozy mittens and places them on the blue spruce tree for him to discover. It soon becomes a game, with the children looking for new mittens on the mysterious tree every morning, and Sarah joyfully knitting new ones each night.

In this book, a women in the neighborhood notices that there is a boy that needs a new pair of gloves for the winter. She grabs her yarn and knits him a pair. She continues knitting gloves for all the kids in the neighborhood who need new gloves. This is a sweet book that could be meaningful in a second-grade class. I think that it could pair well with a lesson on the different types of irony's. This book contains dramatic irony because the readers know where the gloves come from but the show more kids do not. Students can practice their knowledge of irony by participating in a turn-and-talk during a read-out-loud about what type of irony is shown within the book. show less