#blogbookaday: This Is the Nest That Robin Built

Summary:  “A robin’s animal friends help build her nest in this cumulative collage picture book.

Robin is building a nest, and her friends are ready to help! The squirrel trims the twigs. The dog brings the string. The horse shares his straw. And then a surprise gatefold spread reveals how Robin knits them all together to make a safe and cozy home for her babies.” (Taken from Goodreads)

Review: With the help of other woodland creatures, Robin builds a nest for her eggs, that hatch and soon leave the safety of the nest to explore the wide world. I love how the writing follows the same format as The House That Jack Built – starting with a stanza and continues to add additional text for each animal that helps the Robin build the nest.

Personal Reaction: Denise Fleming does two things that I absolutely love – first, her collage and printmaking art is awesome, it’s such a distinctive style and one that she does so well for each of her titles. The second, is her use of words, in a fairly easy picture book, Denise doesn’t shy away from words like soupy, anchor, plasters and binds. Picture books hold more “rare” words than typical conversation which allows children to expand and understand many more words before they even begin reading, which means they spend less time trying to understand what the author is saying and more time reading words on the page. This is another nonfiction picture book geared toward young children that works so well as a picture book telling a story and to teach children the basic facts of building a robin’s nest. A perfect read for spring when the robins are about and beginning to lay their beautiful, blue eggs.

Title: This Is the Nest That Robin Built
Author: Denise Fleming
Illustrator: Denise Fleming
Publisher: Beach Lane Books
Publication Date: March 6, 2018

This is a new idea I’m trying on my blog this year that was inspired by @donalynbooks and @heisereads – to provide a brief review of a picture book every day of 2018. You’ll get a brief summary of the story, a review of the content, illustrations and theme, my personal reaction to the book and all the pertinent publication information! Enjoy!