In the Town All Year 'Round by Rotraut Susanne Berner

And my kids had no trouble following the recurring characters. Instead, these books promote not only observational strategies, but also introduce young readers to story telling skills. In the Spring and Summer books, readers can follow the progress of the school's construction, until the Fall when it finally opens.Īnd though the four All Around Bustletown books have a Where's Waldo feel to them, the books don't have a specific task attached to them, like finding a hidden object/Waldo in all the hustle and bustle. In the Winter book, the school is nothing more that a foundation. And yes, there is a kind of sequencing to the books. Of course, everything has a different look and feel to it thanks to the changing seasons. Each book follows the same format - starting from home (as you can see from the illustrations below) and then on to the city with stops at a farm and garage, then a small fish store and a large train station, turn the page and you arrive at a school under construction across the street from a cultural center, keep going and the center of town offers all kinds of stores and activities, this is followed by a visit to a department store for some shopping and finally a visit to a beautiful busy park. What I found to be really nice about these books is that there are recurring characters from book to book and each of the two page spreads give readers a cross-section view inside buildings that is reminiscent of the back of a dollhouse, and a panoramic view of what happening in the outdoor images. The detailed images that are just teeming with activity are why these books have been compared to Martin Handford's Where's Waldo books. In fact, in German, these would be called Wimmelbücher, wordless picture books of everyday scenes that are chockablock with details and each scene is connected to the others by the setting. The illustrations are charming, bright and colorful, elaborately detailed, and with the definite feeling of an old-fashioned German storybook, not surprising since they were originally published in Germany. All Around Bustletown - Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall - are a series of delightful wordless giant-sized board books that follow the adventures of adults, children, animals, birds, and even objects as they go about their day.

In the Town All Year 'Round by Rotraut Susanne Berner