Book Review: Gem

Gem by Holly Hobbie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is just a gem of a book. Sorry, I had to.

This sweet book starts out with a letter from a grandmother to her granddaughter talking about a very cold winter that seemed to last forever. She says the only thing that got her through that winter was remembering a spring when her granddaughter had found a toad and named it Gem. She spent the winter painting pictures of the toad's life, and the rest of the book is made up of these pictures (without words).

At the end, we read the granddaughter's letter response after she has seen the book her grandmother made.

I thought this was darling. The pictures are beautiful and sweet. I love the correspondence at the beginning and end.

This book has a special place in my heart because of my own little backyard adventurers who will surely be catching toads of their own someday (right now it's slugs and worms).