CHILDREN'S BOOKS; FLIP-FLOPPING FISH: Review

In two of her earlier books, ''Growing Vegetable Soup'' and ''Planting a Rainbow,'' Mrs. [Lois Ehlert] used this eye-catching style to illustrate the cycles of gardening, from buying seeds and bulbs to planting, tending and harvesting. Yet both these books, de...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New York times 1990
Main Authors: Barnet, Andrea, Andrea Barnet is a freelance writer
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
BARNET, ANDREA
Ehlert, Lois
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In two of her earlier books, ''Growing Vegetable Soup'' and ''Planting a Rainbow,'' Mrs. [Lois Ehlert] used this eye-catching style to illustrate the cycles of gardening, from buying seeds and bulbs to planting, tending and harvesting. Yet both these books, despite the richness of their subject matter and the beauty of their execution, sometimes go over the heads of young readers. Especially for an urban child who has never cultivated a garden, the flatness of the imagery tends to be too abstract and unreal. Happily, ''Fish Eyes'' avoids these problems without sacrificing any of the jubilance or magic of the author's sharp style. As in her earlier books, the underlying theme of ''Fish Eyes'' is progression. But here she has moved from land to cobalt-blue sea. The idea is to count, rather than to cultivate. And the lure is a passel of flip-flopping fish.
ISSN:0362-4331