Author Spotlight: Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Another favorite author of ours is Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. We've read Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!, A Taste of Honey, The Kindness Quilt, Shells! Shells! Shells!, Count Down to Clean Up!, and Apples Apples Apples.

The books' illustrations are cleverly done in cut paper. It amazes me how Wallace is able to communicate concepts and characters so compellingly using cut paper. Buddy the bear and Minna the rabbit are two characters featured frequently in the books, and their personalities come alive even without being able to draw or paint various facial expressions.

Wallace takes the approach in most of her books of teaching about a topic in the midst of a story. In Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!, Buddy's grandpa sends him a package with various seed-related projects for him to do. In the process, he learns what various seeds look like, catalogues them, makes art projects using them, puts some in a bird feeder, and grows his own grass. It would be fun to get the book and then have your child do everything Buddy does. Similar to Monica Williamson's books, which I mentioned in a previous post, this author has a main storyline and then adds extra information about the topic that you can either delve into fully or skip over if your child isn't interested.

Each book could easily inspire other related projects for your child. In The Kindness Quilt, Minna's class at school creates a paper "quilt" noting various acts of kindness the students performed. My daughter loved looking at the hand-drawn quilt squares and hearing about the kind act displayed in each. An older child could then think of something kind to do and draw a square similar to what they did in the book.

Similarly, you could use Count Down to Clean Up to introduce a household clean up and conservation effort or recycling. You could read Shells! Shells! Shells! before going to the beach, or Apples Apples Apples prior to a trip to the orchard. The possibilities for making the books come alive are endless.

Nancy Elizabeth Wallace has countless other books that promise similar enjoyment and learning. I'm excited to read more of her titles!