Pie in the Sky

This is one of my kids' favorite books. They ask me to read it time and time again. I especially love how unique the pictures are. She uses various forms of artistic media to make the most interesting and beautiful collages; truly a work of art. This is a very unique book your children are sure to love.

Movement, color, unique page formatting, and a mysterious blend of words and images launch the first few pages of this imaginative, exceptionally well-illustrated book for kids. Besides an abstract picture of a tree trunk with a caterpillar and a purple, turquoise, and white/translucent dragonfly, the unnamed narrator informs us: "This tree was here when we moved in." On the next half page insert, the caterpillar is further up the tree, and the narrator says, rather mysteriously, "Dad says it's a pie tree." Turn the last half-page insert, and small red dots with tiny black eyes-ladybugs-join the caterpillar on the tree trunk. There's another engaging "hook" in large letters: "I've never seen pies growing on trees. Wouldn't that be something?" Except for the initial inserts, every page of author/illustrator Lois Ehlert's unusually compelling nature/mystery book is increasingly elaborated but similarly formatted: There's an eye-dazzling collage, a one or two-sentence narrative that hints at the tantalizing but puzzling prospect of a "pie tree," and smaller-font prose poetry that references the collage and doubles as a vocabulary builder: I see green leaves, white blossoms, yellow pollen dust, blue eggs In a brown nest, yellow honeybees, and black stripes On a yellow Butterfly. But no pie. Ehlert's collages use a variety of materials-including origami papers, wood veneers, vellum, sheet metal, cherry tree branches-to complement her acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, oil pastel, and crayon drawn illustrations. The result is an incredibly textured group of collages that are among the best illustrations of 2004. Somehow, they're abstract and realistic, brilliantly colored, and gracefully beautiful without being precious or too delicate. The story is similarly well balanced: The paean to nature is evident ("Sweet spring is here at last" .... "But now a damp wind is blowing, and all the flower petals are falling down like rain"), but just when things threaten to become overwrought, the child's voice returns, and the mystery of the pie tree is solved: It's a cherry tree, and birds and butterflies and even a raccoon ("But, hey, raccoon, save some for us!") have already begun their "feast." Now it's the child and his or her dad's turn, and the book concludes by showing the preparations for a very cherry-filled pie. It is, after all, a pie tree. An outstanding picture book, with an original story and excellent pedantic value as well (i.e., all that vocabulary building and object searching), this is one pie in the sky that delivers. Definitely recommended.

[This review was first published in the "Ephrata (Pa.) Review."] All of Ehlert's productions are cornucopias of color, shapes and textures, and "Pie in the sky" is no exception. A girl and her father watch a cherry tree evolve from winter's bare branches to summer's wealth of "rubies," (which they tuck between crusts). Assorted creatures come and go, from tiny ladybugs to a masked "thief." Ehlert's bold collages use an assortment of materials. Corrugated cardboard, handmade papers from five countries, wood veneers, sheet metal, wires, balsa wood, wax paper, and cherry tree branches are among the items used in "Pie." Quite a recipe!