Summer: Animals Share in a Poetic Tale of Kindness

One hot summer's day, a group of animals quarrel with one another about who is entitled to the shade of the one tree in the area. When the smaller creatures, who had been evicted by the larger and more powerful elephant, see that the tree has no foliage, and can therefore offer no relief, they laugh at the elephant. But then all of the animals see a human father and child walking by, the child entirely in his parent's shadow. Inspired, each animal offers shade to a companion smaller than himself, until everyone but the elephant has some refuge from the hot sun. Fortunately for the elephant, a cloud happens by, offering him relief as well...

Originally published in China in 2015, as 夏天, this picture-book meditation on the importance show more of sharing and mutual aid is from the pen of prolific children's author Cao Wenxuan, and features the artwork of illustrator Rong Yu. The design is quite interesting, featuring a section of pages, in the middle of the book, that are of different lengths. This section corresponds to the part of the story where the animals begin to offer shade to one another, from smallest to largest, and the length of the page reflects this, moving from narrowest to longest, as the story progresses. This kind of book design is similar to that in Cao Wenxuan's Feather, which also featured pages of different length, but here it feels as if the design is working with the story. The artwork itself is sweet, with cute animals characters, and a lovely color palette. My only word of criticism for the book is that although it appears to be set on the African savannah, it features animals from all over the world, that would not normally appear together. Leaving that aside - and as the book is more a meditation on the theme of sharing and helping others, I don't know that it really should be read as a naturalistic animal story - I recommend this one to picture-book readers looking for engaging and beautifully-illustrated summer stories, or tales about selfish vs. unselfish behavior. show less

Love this one, which I believe was originally published in Chinese and then later translated into English.

The story is pretty simple: it's a hot, hot day in summer and there's only one skinny tree with any shade, but there are a lot of hot animals who want that shade! They fight until they realize there's no point--that tree really doesn't give much shade at all. But then a man walks by holding a child's hand--and the animals notice that his shadow completely protects the child from the sun. One by one, the animals line up so that each one can offer a smaller animal some shade, even the elephant who gets no shade for himself...until a cloud finally comes by.

In addition to the pretty illustrations, the book has some excellent design show more choices that make the book even more fun: each animal's text is a different color, the fonts are different sizes depending on how big or small, near or far an animal is, and the middle pages in which the animals line up start thin--about three inches wide--and get wider as each larger animal gets in line until we're back to the width of a full page.

A lovely book with gentle lessons about kindness to others. show less

This was a very sweet book about sharing and enjoying the company of friends rather than suffering in isolation because you're too proud to help.It's a hot, dusty day on the savanna and all the animals are desperate for some shade. They are willing to fight each other to get their own relief from the sun, even if it means leaving the others out in the sun. None of them find any relief and there's a sense of schadenfreude among them in knowing that if they're miserable, at least the others are too. But then they see a man and a boy walk by, the boy totally covered by the man's shade. The man has nothing to hold the sun away from him, but at least the boy is a little cooler because of the man's care. One by one, the animals line up, show more providing relief to those smaller than themselves. Not even the large elephant is left out because a wandering cloud that decides to park over the animals provides enough shade for all of them.

The artwork of this book is absolutely beautiful. Yu Rong used cut paper and pencil to craft the book, which means each page includes eye-catching blocks of bold color. Not every page includes a fully colored background, but those that do are absolutely stunning. show less