View From a Sketchbook: Nature Through the Eyes of Marjolein Bastin

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Summary: A year on the prairie with Marjolein Bastin
Review: "View from a Sketchbook" is a lovely album of watercolors by Marjolein Bastin, the illustrator of the children's books starring Vera the Mouse, and Tovah Martin, who kept a journal of Marjolein's nature walks during a full year from spring through winter. They spent the year at the Bastin's home in a carefully tended patch of Missouri prairie, visiting the Bastin's old home in Ede in central Holland, and on vacation on Grand Cayman.

There are three dozen full-page illustrations and numerous little sketches, sometimes just a single bumblebee or eggshell. You can see the love and care that goes into every little detail. Even the list of contents is terminated with a tiny ladybug. And the cover of the book underneath the dust jacket is decorated with a frieze of Canada geese with a family of chicks. This is an exquisitely beautiful book from the rabbit on the first page to the Giant Swallowtail on the last.