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In the Town All Year 'Round
By Carrie R. Wheadon,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Few words help kids focus on many details and story lines.
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What's the Story?
Four sections, one for each season, start with an introduction to about 15 characters and what they'll be up to basically: "Andrea oversleeps and misses her bus" and "Pedro loves to sing and play his guitar." Then we follow those characters through wordless backdrops, starting with an apartment complex in the country with a bus stop out front and continuing down the road with the bus through the country, past a bustling train station, alongside a construction site for a new kindergarten and the cultural center across the street, around a packed town square, next to a mall and its parking garage, and in front of a scene lakeside with a playground, farm, and cafe. In winter the kindergarten is mostly a patch of dirt, and by summer it's ready for a grand opening with a special lantern parade and concert to celebrate. Along the way people buy Christmas presents, visit an art exhibit, take piano lessons, fix a flat bike tire, feed a donkey, lose a hat, exercise on a balcony, have a birthday party, enter a pumpkin contest, and more.
Is It Any Good?
IN THE TOWN ALL YEAR 'ROUND is the kind of great, nearly wordless story you'll pore over for hours with kids. There are so many details and stories to take in. Where's the parrot on this page? Will the woman notice that a donkey is nibbling on her produce while she's talking to the grocer? Why is that guy giving a swift kick to a ticket machine? Will that girl who picked up Matthew's wallet and key catch him before he runs away?
Then the season changes and the frames are the same, but not exactly. New questions emerge. Now there's a big dinosaur at the community center. What used to be there? What looks different about the kindergarten building? Which activities are kids doing at the lake? Why don't they have their ice skates on anymore? It's hard to get through more than a season at one bedtime reading so you can test kids' memories while you go. Pretty soon they'll be experts at picking out every detail, building essential learning skills while having a lot of fun.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about what the characters are doing. Who's your favorite to follow? Why?
What changes each season? Which clues reveal what season it is without looking at the section? When you would expect people to wear heavy coats? When would you expect the shopping mall to be packed with people?
There's only a small character introduction each season. Do you like having so few words to follow in a book? Do you think you notice more details without words to follow?
Book Details
- Author: Rotraut Susanne Berner
- Genre: Picture Book
- Topics: Cars and Trucks , Cats, Dogs, and Mice , Holidays , Science and Nature
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Chronicle Books
- Publication date: October 1, 2008
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 2 - 5
- Number of pages: 72
- Available on: Hardback, iBooks
- Last updated: July 12, 2017
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