Reproduction Taken From: Kirkus Reviews

LILY FAYE AND THE MIGHTY OAK

BY INGRID JENNINGS ; ILLUSTRATED BY ESTELA RAILEANU ‧ RELEASE DATE: DEC. 17, 2020

A frog learns a little about science in Jennings’ picture book.

Lily Faye just wants to bask in the sun, but there’s a problem: An old oak tree is casting a long shadow across her part of the pond. She asks the tree, “Are you just going to stand there and block the sun? What use are you?” The oak frowns, and Lily Faye hops away. She runs into Bluefish, who tells her the building nearby is a school for mammals known as boys and girls. Lily Faye leaps up to the school window, where a human teacher is explaining how trees make all life on Earth possible by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. She reconsiders her unkind words to the oak tree, returns to the pond, and apologizes. The tree accepts and parts its branches to flood the frog’s lily pad with sunlight. Raileanu’s illustrations are in a class of their own, eschewing the soft pastels many readers expect of picture books. Characters are highly stylized, and saturated colors, bordering on lurid, give the book a late-1970s Golden Book vibe. Some of the science may not be enough for curious readers: Bluefish says Lily Faye is an amphibian but doesn’t detail what that means, and how carbon dioxide becomes oxygen isn’t explained. That said, what’s presented is simple and easy to understand.A well-illustrated introduction to a few basic science facts.