What's This?

Dynamic art redeems a modest text in this cheerful debut from a British author/illustrator. The tale revolves around a seed that lands in a springtime garden, where it is observed first by a bird, then by a girl. The girl plants the seed and watches as it sprouts a sunflower, tends the flower during the summer and, with her classmates, preserves its seeds for the following spring. Mockford's attempt to streamline the story creates a few gaps (e.g., the sunflower appears in a sudden burst of glory, with no prior mention of even a bud), but the irresistibly bright acrylics more than compensate. The perspectives and line are childlike but sophisticated, and the colors combine in novel and arresting ways. The opening page, for example, features a fuchsia and orange sky, a citrus yellow-green sward of grass, a vivid pink tree trunk plus a sweep of brown earth in the foreground--all of it toned down with spacklings of white paint. The composition, like the book itself, captures the bubbly mood of spring. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)