Summersaults

It's summertime, and if you're a kid, the living can be very easy indeed. Douglas Florian's ode to the simmering, shimmering, sizzling, fizzling, flaming season of sun places every reader smack dab in the middle of a summer day (or night), with all its resident fireflies, cartwheels, green frogs, and sidewalk scooters. This companion volume to Florian's award-winning Winter Eyes celebrates summer with 48 short poems and accompanying watercolor and colored pencil illustrations. In "Bees," a child pithily reports:

I'm pleased by bees
Except for one thing:
The sting.

Against a brilliant yellow green grassy background, a redheaded boy sits placidly reading inside mosquito netting, half a dozen bees buzzing longingly nearby. Swarming with humor and honesty about barefoot days, humid nights, and those "Three words / Most cruel: / Back to school," this bright collection by the talented author-illustrator of Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs will demand year-round attention. (Ages 5 and older) --Emilie Coulter