Title: Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf
ISBN:978-0-06-443178-1
Author and Illustrator: Lois Ehlert
Date of publication:1991
Award won: The Caldecott Medal Honor winner, Reading Rainbow Book
Age recommendation: 4-8
Group represented: could represent all groups, or all people leaving in a climate where the seasons change.

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf talks about the life of a tree from a child's perspective. This book first talks about how seeds from a Maple tree, that look like helicopters to me, fall to the ground and blow around during the Fall season. The seeds that the squirrels and birds don't eat get implanted into the ground and the child's tree was born in the spring. After the tree spouts came up from the ground nursery workers came and took the child's tree from the forest and brought it to a place to monitor it's growth until it was big enough to sell. The child and his dad go to the nursery in the Fall to pick out a tree for their yard. During the winter months the child hangs up bird feeders on his tree and in the spring the child looks for new growth, leaves and the tree flowers turning into seeds. Lastly the child speaks of how pretty the tree is in the fall when the leaves are red, yellow, and orange. The child in this story loves their tree!

I think this book would be an excellent book to read in an elementary classroom when doing a science unit on things of nature or learning about different parts of trees or plants. The book shows parts of trees labeled and also has a section at the end that talks about roots, buds, bark, and seeds.

This book could also be used when talking about weather in a classroom or the changing of seasons and what happens to things in nature during the different seasons. Elementary students could have an assignment to go out in nature and collect leaves and then look in books to identify all the leaves that they find and make a poster.

Students could also be assigned to make collages out of things found outside.

This book could be used when doing a unit on cleaning up and respecting the environment.The class could go to a local park and identify types of trees, or help clean-up a park, or wrap tree trunks to protect the trees. The class could learn about different birds that live in trees and make bird feeders to put in their favorite trees in their yards. The students could start a Kids for Saving Earth club that does environmentally friendly projects around school and the community.