The Falling Leaves

The Falling Leaves

Written by Steve Metzger

Illustrated by Jill Dublin

Scholastic Inc., 2002

30 Pages

Fiction

          I chose this book because it looked very kid friendly and I love seasonal books! The Falling Leaves are Red Oak, Orange Maple, Purple Beech, and Yellow Hickory. They know the time to fall off of the tree is coming, and they are all dreaming of where they want to fall. For Red Oak, it is the grass, for Purple Beech, it is a bush, and for Orange Maple it was the blue lake.  As for Yellow Hickory, she was different, she wanted to relax and let the wind take her wherever it wanted. The other leaves did not like her idea, they told her she was too skinny, would fall straight to the ground and get stomped on by a boot. Yellow Hickory began to cry. The wind was angry and blew all the leaves into a mud puddle, except Yellow Hickory. The wind picked her up and she sailed across mountains and valleys and when it was time, the wind placed her in the lake. That was exactly where she wanted to be. 

Dublin uses watercolor and color pencil for her illustrations. Her illustrations are vibrant and are mainly primary colors. The illustrations span across two pages, and she uses informal text placement. The illustrations are very kid friendly and would appeal to younger elementary students. 

The Falling Leaves would make a great science lesson about the seasons and why the leaves fall in autumn. This would also make a great lesson for Kindergarten students to learn about primary colors and then art could be incorporated by creating a drawing an illustration of their favorite thing about fall using primary colors. The students could write a sentence about the drawing to incorporate language arts. This book has not received any awards.