From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-This cozy rhyming story makes a complete circle as it looks at different types of "nests" in nature. It opens with a young boy at bedtime, then moves out into the world to describe how a mouse nestles in an old garden glove, a chipmunk sleeps in a brush pile, fish rest in brooks and oceans, boats find safety in the harbor, and space makes a nest for the stars and planets. The focus returns to the boy's bedroom where his mother gives him a goodnight kiss. On one level, the book describes how all things in nature are interconnected ("All things together are in the same nest-/-We're here in the nest of creation"); on another, it celebrates a mother's love for her child ("And you're here, safe and warm,/In the nest of my arms,/When I wrap them around you with love"). Done in a folk-art style, the charming gouache illustrations reflect the contemplative mood. This short piece makes a nice choice for a Mother's Day storytime, or it can be combined with Mary Ann Hoberman's A House Is a House for Me (Viking, 1978) or Megan McDonald's Is This a House for Hermit Crab? (Orchard, 1990) for a fun look at different homes.
Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA
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*Starred Review* PreS-Gr. 1. A honey of a poem, artwork at once timeless and innovative, and a sweetly optimistic message distinguish this soothing bedtime book. Lindbergh opens with lines as pitch perfect as any of Margaret Wise Brown's: "Snuggled in bed, / You're all safe and warm, / Like a bird in a nest in a tree." As the lilting verses explain, relationships of many kinds can be seen as nests and things nesting. Laundry swaddles a cat and her kittens, a river makes a "watery nest" for trout, and the Earth itself rests inside the "vastness of space." This reassuring premise is bolstered by McElmurry's velvety gouache paintings, studded with precisely rendered patterns that suggest an orderly, well-designed universe. McElmurry's interest in such patterns was also evident in Mad about Plaid (2000), but the comic, retro sensibility she displayed in that book gives way to something entirely new here--a kind of folk-art simplicity electrified with sunset pinks, emerald greens, royal blues and purples. From a circular vignette of a doe protectively curled around her fawn to a pyschedelic double-page depiction of outer space, McElmurry invests each of the ever-widening frames of reference with vibrancy and charm. What children will like best, though, is the return to the cocoon of home, where the final metaphorical "nest" awaits: mother's encircling arms. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Reeve Lindbergh, the daughter of aviator Charles Lindbergh and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, has written many children’s books, including MY HIPPIE GRANDMOTHER and ON MORNING WINGS, as well as several memoirs for adults. She says of OUR NEST, "As a child, I loved to curl up in bed and feel as if I were inside a little warm nest. I’d think about all the other children who were curled up at the same time, just like me. It gave me a wonderful feeling."
Jill McElmurry is the illustrator of THE KETTLES GET NEW CLOTHES and I’M SMALL AND OTHER VERSES, and is the author-illustrator of MAD ABOUT PLAID. About OUR NEST, she says, "I first read the manuscript a few months after September 11 and felt so comforted by its vision of our world nesting peacefully in the universe, the way a doe nests with her fawn in tall grass. Illustrating the story was a challenge, but I found a new way of working in the process."
