Over and under the wetland

Messner and Neal's seventh contribution to their long-running series (most recently Over and Under the Canyon, rev. 11/21) follows a child and nature-savvy grandmother into a cypress swamp. The boardwalk trail takes them "through curtains of green in the afternoon sun." Messner's lyrical prose captures how the environment stimulates all the senses: spiderwebs "tickle my face," an unseen animal "rustles the brush below," and the muggy air "clings." As the humans observe nature above ground, the text and illustrations sink below the swamp's surface to observe plants and animals in the "secret kingdom of frog song and insects, of wading birds and water snakes." Their sounds (churrrr-churrr, ratatatatat) are emphasized in larger-size text. Not all the animals in the pictures are named, giving readers the opportunity to consult the back matter for field guide-like information. Neal's illustrations beautifully portray the swamp and its inhabitants from multiple over and under perspectives, sometimes positioned soaring high over the humans with an egret searching for prey or down into the grass with a family of raccoons, and sometimes using horizontal compositions, much like cross sections, that show above and below simultaneously. As the sun sets, nocturnal sounds "sing us goodbye." Also appended with an author's note and a bibliography. Danielle J. FordSeptember/October 2024 p.55 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Swamps can be subtly spectacular, if you know where to look and what to see. This addition to Messner's and Neal's successful Over and Under series sees readers through the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Florida. Dark-haired "Grandma" and a skirt-wearing child "wander, through curtains of green," on a boardwalk. What lives in the subtropical wilderness beneath and above them? Many, many animals populate this "secret kingdom": a barred owl and pig frog; a painted bunting, red-bellied woodpecker, and red-shouldered hawk (one page is devoted to their various sounds); a black-crowned night heron, banded water snake, and cottonmouth; a dazzling white egret, and roseate spoonbills eating small fry; a swamp lily and red-bellied turtle, the latter immediately snapped up in the jaws of an alligator; a strangler fig hugging a cypress; a raccoon family; a swallow-tailed kite and mosquito fish; anhinga, Florida panther, ghost orchid, and sphinx moth. The pages that follow provide detailed information on the habits, appearance, features, and contributions of each named member of the ecosystem, as well as additional information about the specific sanctuary depicted. Neal's delicate, colorful, and accurate mixed-media art invites readers to linger. The images, without lines or shadows, bring the hidden wetland world right before readers' eyes. A quiet and beautiful celebration of an elusive, underappreciated, and often threatened natural resource. (further reading)(Informational picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.