If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall
Published by Chronicle Books on September 15, 2020
ISBN: 145213779X
Pages: 80
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Goodreads

A little boy writes an open letter to a perspective space visitor, telling said visitor what to expect upon his visit. First, where we ae located in the solar system, how to spot our planet from the others – the brown and green are land and the blue is water, where we live – big cities, towns, small villages and out in the middle of nowhere, what we look like,  what  our families are like, what we do, what we value, what is important to our species. Page by page, we get a glimpse of what our earth offers, from the birds that fly, the animals that hop, walk, swim, crawl, what we can see and what is invisible. Ms. Blackall uses sparse text supported by illustrations in muted colors that are clear, calm and detailed. She said the idea for this book came from visits to one room classroom in Bhutan where she asked the children to draw the things they thought were important  to them : families and food, school and home.

This is a book that asks us to think of about what is important to us and in turn, what we need to do to ensure that good care is given all we hold dear.                                                                                          Use this in units on nature, the environment and discussions on what and who we hold important .            Consider for cream                                                                                                                                                                 Gr K-3

Submitted by Kathy George, Gray Public Library, Gray, Maine