Star in My Orange: Looking for Nature's Shapes Book

Photographs and simple text explain how various shapes and patterns can be found all around in nature.

Children's Literature

Four kinds of shapes that appear in nature are introduced to the developing child. The simple narrative is from a child's perspective. The child sees the star shape in an orange, a starfish, a snowflake and a daisy. She finds the branch shape in deer antlers, as well as her arms and hands. She sees lots of little shapes in turtle shells, a bee's honeycomb and a pinecone. She finds spirals in a seahorse, a ram's horns, a pig's tail, and shells until she's as a dizzy as the spiraling earth in a sky of stars. Well-chosen fine photographs show these natural objects with the shapes clearly recognizable. The back of the book provides a more advanced discussion of the many places in nature to look for these same four shapes. This is a very pleasing approach to the early discovery of natural geometric patterns that can inspire young children to look further into the subject. 2002, The Millbrook Press, $22.90. Ages 4 to 8. Reviewer: Carol Raker Collins AGES: 4 5 6 7 8