Pleasantly off-kilter rhymes pair with intricately constructed sculpted paper scenes in this carefully crafted depiction of a girl's wide-eyed daybreak explorations. Ortakales (Carrot in My Pocket
) imbues her full-bleed collages with convincing perspective and depth, using shadows and precise folds that make the flowers, insects and objects appear to lift off the page. Gently creased marble-like cutouts form a remarkably realistic rock stairway, and a leathery toad peeks from underneath an overturned flowerpot. Although the girl herself never quite comes to life, innumerable details in the landscapes await on each spread to delight readers' eyes. Brenner's (What the Elephant Told
) rhymes often come unexpectedly, meandering like the girl's path around her garden: "Good morning,/ orange butterfly/ drinking dew./ Good morning, blue/ delphinium,/ purple phlox,/ pink hollyhocks." The book concludes by panning over the neighborhood as it awakens with an early morning jogger and skateboarder, as the girl and her mother kneel to tend to a patch of flowers. Ages 3-5. (May
)
