Customer Reviews

The Year At Maple Hill Farm

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This has been a favorite book of ours for years and years and years. "The Year at Maple Hill Farm" is written and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provenson. It documents, from January through December, the hard tasks and simple pleasures inherent in life on a farm--everything from bird migrations to the foaling of the horses to lazy summer days spent doing nothing more important swatting flies.

Humans and animals co-exist peacefully here. The illustrations are simple and gently colored, with subtle detail sprinkled throughout. The animals are given a great deal of personality (see especially the cats, who are wonderfully quirky) and the story itself, while utterly basic and free of frills, has an undertow of narrative propulsion that makes each page seem a natural outgrowth of the previous page.

I can't recommend the book highly enough. If you live in the country, you will recognize so much of what is here. If you live in the city, you will welcome the peaceful rhythms of this charming book.

We got this book as a companion to 'Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm'. I have to say, I love 'Our Animal Friends' best, but this is also a great book. I like it as a companion to Our Animal Friends. The book goes through the months of the year, and what happens with the animals in each month. Humorous and interresting for our 3 and 7 year olds.

I just bought this book for a gift, and seeing it on Amazon's website makes me want to go find it on my daughter's bookshelf, and read it myself. And I'm 43!

What a sweet, beautiful, educational, pleasure of a book. It's a great size with gorgeous illustrations. The text is fun to read and fun for a child to listen to, and the whole book is non-fiction and very educational. The perfect combination of a book. I just love it and love to give it! It just bounces and is very engaging. You'll want to read it every season for years.

Enjoy!

I love this book, along with "Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm."

In this factory-farm era, it's a great look into farm life the way it used to be, and for a lucky few, still is. The illustrations are both funny and sweet, the writing tender but matter-of-fact. Both were done by the owners of an old-fashioned family farm.

The authors take the reader on a through-the-year tour of their farm, introducing them to the various tasks and animals as they go. Every animal has a personality (even the sheep), and every month has its ups and downs--things the average suburban child, and even the average suburban parent, knows little about. Every child should own these two books!

This wonderful picture book takes you through a year at a farm (great for us city dwellers who have never step foot on a farm). It is very informative and interesting. The pictures and the story are enjoyed by my children. We are very pleased to have this book in our collection.

This book was a find at a yard sale and is a joy for both my husband and I as well as my daughter since she was 2. It introduces all kinds of subjects like veterinarian medicine, not to mention the obvious seasons cycle and life on a farm activities. The illustrations are simple and detailed enough to even keep an older childs attention.

My children loved this book years ago. The illustrations are wonderful; the writer has a strange sense of humor in some of the comments. I wanted to introduce my grandkids to this book and it seems my grandson (almost 3) had already discovered this book at the library and really liked it. I am giving this book as a special Christmas gift to him so he can read it as often as he would like!

we love this book so much. so many great little details. can be read over and over and is loved more each time.

This book is excellent for little ones to begin to understand the flow of time, seasons and months. Really little ones can benefit from the pictures and also the bold words while older kiddos can get more detail. It goes through the months of the year and what happens in the farm. We also talk about whose birthday it is in those months to bring it closer to home. It helps children to understand the cycle of the year with months and seasons.

I had never read this book but the other title by the same authors tempted me to buy it as I loved it so much as a child. This has also proven to be an excellent book with lovely illustrations. The realistic approch to explaining what farm life is like is captivating and the pictures can have a child looking at the fine details for hours. Highly reccomended.