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To Be Like the Sun    by Susan Marie Swanson & Margaret Chodos-Irvine Amazon.com order for
To Be Like the Sun
by Susan Marie Swanson
Order:  USA  Can
Harcourt, 2008 (2008)
Hardcover
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Daninhirsch

Margaret Chodos-Irvine lends her unique printmaking style to this pretty picture book about sunflowers. The main character is a small sunflower seed, which carries a world of knowledge and beauty within it. A little girl is shown planting and taking tender care of a growing sunflower, and she speaks to it. The prose is quite lyrical and lovely to read.

'Sunflower,
we taped a snapshot of you
to our refrigerator.

Your picture
is smaller than my hand,
and a sunflower seed
is smaller than a word,
but I remember:
you were taller than everyone.
When the winter sky shivers
with icy stars,
I remember how hard you worked
to be like the sun.
'

The pictures are bursting with color, much as a sunflower bursts through the earth and reaches to the sky. Children of all ages will appreciate the book, and To Be Like the Sun is so well done, that they may not realize they are learning a little something, too.

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