A Picture Book a Day for a Year: Day 326

Picture Book: And Here’s to You! 

Author: David Elliott

Illustrator: Randy Cecil

Summary: This book is a collection of clever and loving affirmations of all sorts of people, not your typical categories of people though: feather people (birds), bubble people (fish), hungry people (bears) and others. In the illustrations, the human characters are delighted by all the diversity within and among these species. For each set of animals, there’s a rhythmic verse with a consistent meter and form that is repeated with substitutions for each species, including one celebrating People People (humans) at the end. Here’s a sample:

Here’s to the frogs!

The Singing People!

Frogs!

Here’s to the bass ones.

The big nothing–but-face ones.

Here’s to the little peeping ones,

And lily pad and leaping ones.

Oh, I love the frogs!

Hanna’s Comments: This picture book is not just about animal diversity. It's also all about the practice of loving affirmation! It could easily be used to explore gratitude and even contemplation. All are faith practices that are easy and important for children to learn. What is contemplation as a faith practice? It’s simply centering your body while quietly considering a word, object, or any bit of God's creation. If you have some good writers, encourage them to come up with their own verses using the same meter or do this together as a group. They don’t have to continue the animal theme. You could offer other themes such as flowers, weather, foods, trees, vacation spots, music, etc. I do think these should be natural, not man-made, so that the gratitude and contemplation are easily realized. Allowing your children to be creative will engage them and make the learning more meaningful. Be sure to emphasize and demonstrate one of the faith practices mentioned above.

Original Publisher & Date of Publication: Candlewick Press, 2004

Age & Grade Appropriateness: 3 and up, Pre and up

# of Pages: 32

Available in Spanish? Not at present

Formats other than Book: Audio CD

PBT Category: Post 2K

PBT Topics this Book connects with: abundance/bounty, affirmation, animals, awe, beauty, community, differences, diversity, Earth/world, environment/nature, gladness/happiness, gratitude/thanksgiving, joy, variety, wonder

Scripture Connections: Ask the beasts, they will teach you. (Job 12:7); whoever is righteous has regard for the life of their beasts (Proverbs 12:10) let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6); for by God all things were created (Colossians 1:16)

Idea(s) for Application:  Read this book in a lesson for preschool or elementary children on God’s creative diversity or the practices of affirmation, gratitude, or contemplation.