The Year At Maple Hill Farm

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding in every way
Review: This has been a favorite book of ours for years and years and years. "The Year at Maple Hill Farm" is written and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provenson. It documents, from January through December, the hard tasks and simple pleasures inherent in life on a farm--everything from bird migrations to the foaling of the horses to lazy summer days spent doing nothing more important swatting flies.

Humans and animals co-exist peacefully here. The illustrations are simple and gently colored, with subtle detail sprinkled throughout. The animals are given a great deal of personality (see especially the cats, who are wonderfully quirky) and the story itself, while utterly basic and free of frills, has an undertow of narrative propulsion that makes each page seem a natural outgrowth of the previous page.

I can't recommend the book highly enough. If you live in the country, you will recognize so much of what is here. If you live in the city, you will welcome the peaceful rhythms of this charming book.