Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“Petals curve. Insects swerve.”
(Click to enlarge spread)

 

“In spring,” writes April Pulley Sayre in the closing note of her newest picture book, Bloom Boom! (Beach Lane, February 2019), “flowering plants can bloom a few at a time, over weeks and months. But sometimes, many bloom all at once. There’s a boom of blooms.” And this joyous book celebrates that very thing.

With vivid photographs, Sayre celebrates the arrival of spring — when “seeds sprout” and “stems pop out” and the world begins to bloom. Many spreads feature the type of design you see in the spreads in this post (two photographs, divided by a thin white line), but they alternate with full-bleed spreads that showcase flowers in bloom. It’s on these latter spreads that we repeatedly read the ecstatic “Bloom, boom!” In the final four spreads, the pace slows a bit with a series of three spreads featuring the two-illustration lay-out, the momentum building to a final spread of California poppies covering a hillside near Los Angeles and a final jubilant “BOOM!” in larger font and all caps. This careful pacing, as well as the repeated refrain of “bloom, boom!” throughout the book, makes it a great read-aloud.

Two backmatter spreads, which include websites listed as “Bloom Resources,” provide details about the bloom of flowers all over the country, as well as name the flowers seen in the spreads throughout the book. Sayre doesn’t only feature flowers here: children will enjoy spotting the rabbit, bee, and more.

Exuberant and bursting with color, this is a picture book that rewards on every level. It’s another engaging poetic photo-journey from Sayre. Here are a couple more spreads. …

 

“Colors call. Fragrance flies.”
(Click to enlarge spread)

 


“Welcome, birds and butterflies!”
(Click to enlarge spread)

 

* * * * * * *

BLOOM BOOM! Copyright © 2019 by April Pulley Sayre. Images reproduced by permission of the publisher, Beach Lane Books, New York.