Someone Says

Both my four year old and nearly two year old love this book. The musicality of Carole Lexa Schaefer's prose and Pierr Morgan's beautiful and simple illustrations have had "Someone Says" at the top of their request list since it came into our collection last winter. Tonight they were particularly pleased with the noodle-slurping tigers. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to buy a beautiful, well-written book for young people (ages 2-6).

Someone Says describes a day in a preschool, enhanced by the children's imaginations. Someone says, "Let's leapfrog in to the classroom." The children do, all the while imagining they are actually frogs. The illustration includes the children doing the leapfrogging, and the imagined frogs leapfrogging overlaid. The illustrator has interpreted traditional Chinese ink-brush techniques using Prismacolor and gouache. She has increased the amount of color brilliance to increase the appeal to young children. It was a beautiful, intercultural experience to read this book, and I want to do it again.

Author Carole Lexa Schaefer dreamed "Someone Says" before she wrote it. The director of a preschool as well as the author of children's books ("The Squiggle," "The Little French Whistler"), Schaefer simply lets us follow a group of young children from when they first line up to go to school each morning until they go to bed to dream about another great day. In between every time they have something to do "Someone says" that they should warm up the shadows of trees on the ground with their bird wings or that they should make me new songs when the teacher says it is time to sing, and everyone follows along. One moment they are children and then the next they are leaping frogs or prancing ponies. Teaches seeking to unlock the imaginations of their young students (ages 3-7) will find this a simple and elegant key to that end.Pierr Morgan's illustrations, which combine Prismacolor markers and gouache, were inspired by traditional Chinese ink-brush paintings and the vibrantly patterned clothing of children she saw on a visit to China. We see the young children and when they let their imaginations take flight Morgan overlays whatever they are pretending to be (e.g., frogs, birds) on their happy figures. The result is a simple celebration of the creativity of children representing "the spirit vision, and dreams of the child in each and every one of us, all over the world."