Slow Down and Be Here Now, lyrical, illustrated STEM around us

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Repeat that to yourself a couple of times and look at Slow Down and Be Here Now: More Nature Stories to Make You Stop, Look, and Be Amazed by the Tiniest Things. You’re thinking that it’s a book about nature poems. It’s got the oversized look to where it certainly could be loaded with poems about nature. The cover is softly illustrated and shows dandelion seeds being blown off from its host; while a rodent of some sort looks on from a neighboring plant. However, open the book and you’ll see seeds of STEM-based fun that lets young readers know that this is not rhyme-based reads for short attention span theater.

There’s an engaging array of various small critters and flowers, with each illustration showing them in a slightly different activity. OK, on the next page there is a poem, but stay with us, because on the next page, there’s a table of contents. Poetry books rarely have that, so you’re safely in illustrated research land now.  After that, you get to the meat and potatoes of the book, with every two pages spotlighting a critter or situation that you might see at your local pond.

OK, some of the vignettes start with a very short poem, maybe seven lines long.  However, even on those pages, the poetry constitutes less than 25% of the page space. Interspersed on that same page are various dreamy illustrations that show the animal or plant in its environment, doing its thing. The text is presented in various fonts and sizes that are subtly different. This is not distracting. It’s not distracting because the fonts are just different enough to draw in those casual readers who are attracted to the illustrations.

They will want to see the hermit crab find its new home. You will want to see what the honeybees are doing when the drawings zoom up closer. When the caterpillar makes its leaf tent you will want to see as much as possible. As audiences get closer to the book to see the illustrations they’ll read about what’s happening. They’ll tie the words to the images and then read more.

Slow Down and Be Here Now works as a read-aloud book also. You could start out reading the poem, OK, there’s a little poetry in the book, and then introduce the subject of the pages at hand. They all start out at a macro level, like asking readers to take a look at the edges of the field. It’ll then see if readers are able to view the activity happening slightly farther down. The charm is zipping about from flower to flower in a late fall day.  A group of goldfinches is called a charm, and their sharp, pointy beak is meticulously pecking out the tiny seeds that are in the teasel.

The bird uses some of the flower’s proceeds to make its nest. They’ll use some of the seeds to feed themselves or their young. The seeds that fall out of their beaks will further populate next season’s field of teasels.

Every two pages tell a story like that. The journey is organic and will effortlessly play out if you’re reading the book to young audiences. You’ll be able to ask when they saw birds doing that when they heard a bullfrog, saw a ladybug or something else.  Page by page this is an illustrated book that builds on itself and tells the story of a landscape that kids see every day. The illustrations are engaging enough to entertain kids when they read the book by themselves.

Slow Down and Be Here Now also has the old-school charm that books can provide by giving kids a safe space to chill out. It might inspire some to seek out the beauty of nature, to take a slow walk in the park, to see the wonders that they only read about or something else that’s screen-free. It’s not a poetry book, and it’s much more intelligent than its soft art implies. Instead, this is easy-going, animal-based STEM that’s enjoyable and leisurely like a cold glass of iced tea on a warm summer’s day.

Slow Down and Be Here Now: More Nature Stories to Make You Stop, Look, and Be Amazed by the Tiniest Things is by Laura Brand with illustrations on Freya Hartas and is available on Magic Cat Publishing, an imprint of Abrams Publishing.

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