On Uncle John's Farm - Hardcover

Sally Fitz-Gibbon is a former special education teacher and the author of Two Shoes, Blue Shoes, New Shoes and Lizzie's Storm. She lives with her husband on Bowen Island, near Vancouver, British Columbia. This is the first time she has teamed up with her daughter, Kirsti Wakelin.

Grade 1-3–Written in a rhythmic free verse, this whimsical tale of a little girl's busy day is lovely on every level. Sensory details seem to drift out of the pages: readers breathe in the "warm smells of bacon and syrup and coffee," they watch as a rooster "walks stiffly on stilt-legs with ruffles," hear the "clinking of soup spoons on thick china dishes," and feel the "thick, puffy towels that smell fresh from the line" against their skin. Capturing the joy this child experiences in the simple "dailies" of farm life, the illustrations are perfectly suited to the text. Deines uses what appears to be oil on large-grained paper to portray country landscapes and interiors. He captures the gentle innocence of children's faces and the comfortable, weathered visages of Uncle John. Readers see farm life from many unique angles: the aerial view of a cornfield from an airborne swallow's perspective, and the way a cousin's shoe might look as he is stomping around the hayloft while the narrator hides in the hay below. On Uncle John's Farm is truly a wonderful partnership of artist and writer.–Corrina Austin, Locke's Public School, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada
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