Swirl by Swirl, Color By Color, Scratch by Scratch

I admit it. I'm almost 40 years old and I still love picture books, especially those using poetry or focused on science. The new book Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman caught my eye immediately thanks to the bright and colorful illustrations by Beth Krommes. The pictures are scratchboard drawings etched with a wide assortment of different colors. They are extremely detailed and imaginative portrayals of both individual and composite scenes from nature each showing some of the many ways spirals are seen in nature.

Each plant or animal is labeled with its common name and shown exhibiting some characteristic of the spiral as described in a sentence or two of text accompanying each drawing. A few of the characteristics involve motion and some of those are shown in separate pictures representing before and after states. For example, the bottom of one page talks about being coiled tight and the top of the next about expanding. The same animals are shown on both pages, coiled on the first and stretched out fully on the second.

You'll notice that I'm in the third paragraph of this review and I've yet to do more than briefly mention the main text of this book. That's because it's simplistic and even dull; it seems to exist solely to provide the barest bits of context for the pictures. Despite this, the vocabulary used feels on the advanced side to me - there are many complex, multi-syllabic words as well as several heteronyms (words that are spelled alike but have different meanings and sound different when pronounced aloud such as the verb wind and the noun wind). At times it seems like Sidman is writing more for the parents reading the book to their children than the children themselves, but she doesn't fully commit to either audience. The result is a bit of a muddle that probably won't satisfy either parent or child.

Thankfully both will love staring at the pictures, picking out new details with each subsequent glance or focusing in on an elements that didn't catch their eyes immediately. The pictures are pleasing the instant you see them, but they get even more appealing as you explore them further. You'll definitely want to page through the book several times just to look at the illustrations multiple times.

The color palate used is predominately green and brown, but there are enough bits of yellow and red and orange thrown in to keep the scenes from feeling too dark or earthy. On inspection, few of the colors are terribly bright but somehow they feel vivid anyway. Sometimes a single patch of a brighter color in the corner is enough to relieve the browns and greens. I don't know precisely how Krommes managed it, but she really did do a tremendous job with this book.

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature is nominally educational, but I wouldn't really consider the text about spirals particularly edifying. Rather, the chance to match plants and animals to their names is the primary learning opportunity. To that end, it might have been nice to also include the scientific names of each species as well as its common name. Then again, that may be too advanced for the supposed age range of this book. I think I'd have a better sense of whether it makes sense if the book did a better job of identifying and aiming at a particular age group.

Regardless, I recommend Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature not for the text or as a learning tool, but for the aesthetic pleasure of viewing the included illustrations. They really are fabulous. Everything else is beside the point.

Recommended: Yes