The Pear Tree

I love Amazon marketplace, where I have been able to pick up some lovely picture books for the cost of postage and a nominal penny charge. The latest arrival was The Pear Tree by Meredith Hooper, illustrated by Bee Willey (who also illustrated The Jesse Tree). This is a beauty! It uses the Twelve Days of Christmas format, but begins with a pigeon in a pear tree in January and moves round the year adding extra animals for each month (two starlings, three bees, four squirrels and so on). On each page the animals are illustrated in and around the pear tree, which is seen moving from its bare winter branches, through spring buds, leaves, blossoms and fruit, and back to bare winter again. Some of the animals are quite tiny and need eagle-eyed spotting. The level of detail is still a bit much for Little Cherub who ran out of steam around June, but I can see us getting a lot of pleasure from this book over the next few years.