This Pretty Planet

by Tom Chapin, John Forster, Lee White (Illustrator)

Overview

Based on the touching song “This Pretty Planet” by Tom Chapin and John Forster, this hopeful and whimsically illustrated picture book celebrates the pretty planet we call home.

Winds blow. Tides flow.
Shooting stars descend.
Our lives begin, middle, and end on
This pretty planet.

From icy tundras to sandy beaches, lush forests to tall mountains, this exuberant picture book journeys around the globe and presents the natural wonders of the planet with a contagious sense of awe and whimsy. Young readers will get lost in the detailed illustrations as the narration serves as a gentle reminder of why we must care for and protect our pretty planet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534445321
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	621,636
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	AD360L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Tom Chapin has entertained, amused, and enlightened audiences of all ages for more than forty years and through twenty-seven CDs, eight Grammy nominations, three Grammy awards, and thousands of live performances. A pioneer in the field of children’s music, he is also a respected singer-songwriter and a strong advocate for the arts in education. Tom lives in Piermont, New York. Find out more at TomChapin.com.

John Forster is a singer-songwriter, playwright, and humorist whose acclaimed output includes musicals on and off Broadway, Grammy-nominated recordings, humor books, and many delightful projects for children, including the perennial stage musical How to Eat Like a Child and a dozen albums with Tom Chapin. John’s comedy CDs include Entering Marion, Helium, and Broadsides, a duet album with Tom featuring their satire for NPR. John lives in South Nyack, New York. For more information visit JohnForster.com.

Lee White lives with his wife and their three crazy cats in Portland, Oregon, and you can visit him online at LeeWhiteIllustration.com.

Editorial Reviews

"The lyrics...offer inspiration for some really magical illustrations. The fanciful detail-rich pictures, on full-bleed single pages, double-page spreads, and panels, celebrate the song's message to care for our planet."

May 6, 2021 - The Horn Book Book Bundles

12/01/2020

PreS-Gr 2—With two siblings to guide readers, the popular children's song gets a remix that becomes a tender picture book poem celebrating the wonder, variety, and fragility of Earth. A bunny wakes two children as their bed sails out the bedroom window via hot air balloon. One child has brown skin, hair in double buns, and a polka dot nightgown, and the other wears striped pajamas and has peach skin and short red hair. They float over their sleeping town, then on to brighter destinations. They peer down on a duck and crocodile flying kites as the poetic text begins, "Winds blow. Tides flow." They sit on a giant mushroom to admire constellations. A time line shows Western civilization from the pyramids, through the era of the Mayflower, the Industrial Revolution, and up to the Information Age. The illustrations are bright and filled with details. There are mermaids in the water and houses shaped like books, as well as more somber images such as dirty smokestacks and landfills. Those are followed with more empowering ones of the children picking up litter and composting. Sheet music on the endpapers repeat the text set to the song's simple melody. Due to the detailed illustrations and abstract themes, this is not a good fit for large group read-alouds, but those same features make it a lovely choice for starting conversations with small groups or one-on-one. VERDICT Many songs have been turned into picture books, but this one is particularly deft at capturing hope and possibility, which defined the original work. It's a sweet accompaniment to Earth Day sing-alongs.—Amelia Jenkins, Juneau P.L., AK

School Library Journal

2020-09-15
Chapin and Forster’s unofficial Earth Day anthem gets a picture-book treatment.

A song that once woke astronauts in space becomes a story told on double-page spreads through White’s whimsical illustrations. A brown-skinned girl with Afro-puff pigtails, a brown-haired White boy, and a white rabbit take off on a bed with a star-patterned coverlet for a dreamlike journey. Carried by a balloon, their flight begins in fantasy. They land on a mushroom planet and admire fanciful constellations. A rocket takes them into space so they can see the spinning Earth. On their return, things are even more surreal. The Earth becomes a spinning record in a landscape with a sleeping lion and dinosaurs. The rabbit rides a dinosaur and, later, helps build one out of snow. Once again carried by the balloon, they float over the river of history, which gradually becomes more dingy and acquires trash. Suddenly the “pretty planet” is a smoke-filled industrial dump. The rabbit weeps. But they set to and clean up (shown effectively in a sequence of panels). Once again, the world is “a holy place.” Appropriately for a picture-book narrative, they end up back in bed. Their room is filled with reminders of their journey. The many allusive details in the illustrations will make adults smile and keep child readers coming back for more. The song is included, scored once for keyboard or guitar and once as a round. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85.5% of actual size.)

Engaging and true to the message. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews