"Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons" by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Mercè López (Millbrook Press, $19.99.)
With her poet's eye, Laura Purdie Salas sees flowers that bloom only when it rains. She sees "wriggling tubes," that fear robins; she feels "cold confetti" falling on her in the winter. Her exuberant haiku-riddles are a celebration of seasons, describing but never naming. What flowers bloom in the rain? With the subtle help of Mercè López's soft acrylic illustrations, children will happily shout out the answer: Umbrellas!
"Monkey Time" written and illustrated by Michael Hall (Greenwillow, $17.99.)
The Minutes — tiny, round orange and gold creatures — fly past, and Monkey tries but can't catch any of them. "We are lightning fast, and you are a slowpoke, Monkey," they taunt. In his tree, with creatures of the rain forest all around, Monkey does his best to get the best of time. Michael Hall's collages of painted and cut paper are color-saturated and lively.
"Isle of You" by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Jaime Kim. (Candlewick, $16.99.)
Even little children have bad days, and in "Isle of You" the brown-haired child finds the cure: a dreamy ocean cruise to an island paradise, with spangly clothes, dancing bears, pink cupcakes, birds big enough to fly on, and new friends galore. Jaime Kim's watercolors are soothing and magical, awash in pinks and purples.
"The Lost Forest" by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Betsy Bowen. (University of Minnesota Press, $17.95.)
The powerhouse duo of Betsy Bowen and Phyllis Root team up again, writing about nature and science in a gorgeous and accessible way. "The Lost Forest" is the true story of a 144-acre stand of old-growth pines in northern Minnesota that was mistakenly marked on maps as a lake and so was never logged. How did this happen? What lives there? What does the ancient forest look like? And what happened to it? "If you have ever walked through the woods you know the land doesn't care about straight lines," Root writes in words so carefully chosen, so image-rich, that they are almost poetry. Bowen's rich acrylic paintings bring the fascinating story to life. An afterword, illustrated by Bowen's drawings and old photographs, goes deeper into the history and the terminology.