When the Earth Wakes

Striking primitivist illustrations in colored pencil on black board create a robust backdrop for Rucki's (Turkey's Gift to the People) paean to the changing seasons. Employing flat perspectives and stylized shapes--circles for heads, semicircles for the wings of geese in flight, cookie-cutter evergreen trees and stars, undulating lines for the horizon--Rucki's toddler-friendly art lends these pages a reassuring sense of solidity and familiarity, enhanced by a deeply earth-toned palette. Heavy strokes and simple patterns create intriguing contrasts, as in the juxtaposition of a highly tactile field of grass or snow and ethereal northern lights. This simple visual style relates seamlessly to the economical story line and the effortlessly childlike narration. A curious bear cub and its mother watch as the earth ""throws off her snowy blankets"" when winter changes into spring, then comes fully alive in summer (when she ""heats up and thunders through long, hot days""), eventually grows ""drowsy"" in fall and ""drapes herself in colorful leaves,"" and finally ""covers herself with blankets of snow"" to sleep through the long cold winter. The text flows at a pace ideal for reading aloud; in light of the ending, it is particularly well suited for bedtime. Certainly the idioms here, visual as well as verbal, are well-worn; the approach, however, feels fresh and new. Ages 4-7. (Feb.)