My Friend Earth

This truly is a celebration of our Earth – not Mother Earth this time, for Francesca Sanna represents Earth as a young girl who does many wonderful things.

Woken from her winter’s sleep by birdsong and the sound of the farmer’s hoe heralding the arrival of spring, she tends to and guards all the animals, from the tiniest spider to the chimpanzees and whales. In summer she pours down water filling streams, making them flow down mountains to become rivers flowing to the sea.

When autumn comes it’s leaves she causes to cascade down, and come winter, she sprinkles ‘whisper silent’ a soft snow blanket to protect the tiny seeds buried in the soil awaiting the new spring, before bedding down to sleep herself once more.

Lyrically written, and lovely to read aloud, the text highlights the awesomeness of our Earth, but it really is the stunning illustrations that for me, are the real show stealers. With die-cuts and cutaway pages creatively used to give a sense of movement through the seasons and to add to the book’s interactive nature, this is a real testament to our precious planet and its natural cycles as well as an incentive to youngsters to become Earth’s guardians too.