But the leaves were so beautiful they had to be shown, they had to be shared.
Have you ever wondered at the colours of the autumn leaves? HAve you ever looked so closely to see the different colours of each individual leaf?
The Perfect Leaf by Andrew Plant will help you to see the wonder that is nature.
Each leaf that falls to the ground during autumn is so different – whether it be in colour, shapes or texture. Whether is is damaged, unmarked or broken – each leaf tells a different story.
In The Perfect Leaf, two girls meet and play. They search for the most perfect leaf of gold, red and crimson. They dive deep, throw leaves into the air and swim around in search of the most perfect leaf there could ever be.
But soon they discover that nothing is perfect and that everything can be beautiful – we just have to look at it in the right way.
The Perfect Leaf explores not only the beauty of nature but also friendship and love. It explores the idea that nothing in this world is perfect and everything has flaws – but these flaws don’t have to be a negative thing, they can be something that makes an object or a person even better.
The Perfect Leaf is a lovely book to share as the seasons change and we start to crunch through the leaves on the ground. It is one that will help you to discuss why we shouldn’t strive for perfection but instead strive for what makes us truly happy.
So what else can you do with this book?
SCIENCE
- Explore the changes in leaves over the seasons.
- Explore different shapes of leaves around your home and learning areas.
- Get outside during those cold winter months and find beauty despite the lack of colour and warmth. See what grows in winter and ponder why.
- Explore symmetry through leaves
LITERACY
- Explore the adjectives used throughout the book to describe leaves. Write your own description of a leaf.
THINKING
- What is perfection?
- Can something be perfect?
Teacher notes: http://fordstreetpublishing.com/ford/images/stories/teachers_notes/The-Perfect-Leaf-Teachers-Notes.pdf
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Hi Nes,
Thanks so much for such a lovely review. It was a book with a long and oddly difficult genesis, and so, like some authors do, I ended up not being overly fond of it when I finally handed over the art for scanning. So it’s been a lovely surprise to see how positively people have been seeing it. It IS about joy and discovery and sharing and I’d lost sight of some of that in the hard slog of finishing it. Some books just pour out, others are a struggle, but all of them eventually just depend on the eye of the beholder/reader. Luckily, readers seem to be seeing The Perfect Leaf through the children’s eyes, which is what the original intention always was.
Thanks again for featuring it – very much appreciated!
Andrew.
P.S. Did you find the whale before reading the Teachers’ Notes?
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Thanks for your comment Andrew. As an aspiring author,
It’s always interesting to hear how books come about.
Thanks for writing it and no we didn’t but my son appreciated it when we knew to look for it as he loves whales!
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