Children curious about the possibility of life on distant planets will find much to think about in this speculative yet scientifically accurate text. The new illustrations, which incorporate photographs of planets, are bright and colorful, but the slightly dated text does not include recent information on the search for microscopic extraterrestrial life forms.

PreS-Gr 2 A newly illustrated version of a 1960 publication. Although the title and beginning pages indicate a broad look at trees, the focus is on the apple tree. Through impressionistic paintings and a simple text, the book describes its seasonal cycle. Bulla discusses the parts of the tree and their functions without complex explanations of the mechanisms involved in fruit formation, photosynthesis, etc. "The blossoms last only a few days.The apples are where the blossoms were before." Concepts such as water intake are emphasized with arrows indicating its route within the plant. The charming paintings, many of which are full-page and large enough for comfortable group sharing, depict numerous outdoor scenes peopled by children of various ethnic backgrounds. An appended section includes instructions for a transpiration experiment and suggests a method for measuring the age of a tree. Gail Saunders-Smith's Apple Trees (Bridgestone, 1998), illustrated with photos, also takes a seasonal approach, but it has a more controlled vocabulary and contains much less information than Bulla's book. Saunders-Smith's From Blossom to Fruit (Pebble, 1998) is exclusively about apple formation, with a very simplified vocabulary and close-up color photos. Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJ