Patterns Everywhere

by Lisa Varchol Perron

Overview

Step outside. Let's find designs— / branching, cracking, spirals, lines. / Search the earth, the seas, the air. / Patterns, patterns everywhere.

Look around and discover patterns in the natural world! You might see them in leaf veins, in coral reefs, in sand dunes, and in many other places. Rhyming verse is accompanied by stunning photographs and brief sidebars that explain how these different patterns form.

"Intriguing encouragement to consider the intersection of mathematics and nature."—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728460420
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/04/2023
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.31(d)
Age Range:	7 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lisa Varchol Perron writes picture books, middle grade novels, and poetry for children. Her poems have appeared in children's magazines, online poetry journals, and anthologies, and she earned the 2021 Boston Authors Club Discovery Award for picture book writers. She lives outside of Boston with her geologist husband and two book-loving kids.

Editorial Reviews

"With content that will appeal to a wide range of readers, this beautiful book about patterns is an excellent choice for elementary libraries."–starred, School Library Journal

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2023

PreS-Gr 4—Identifying patterns in nature is the topic of this comprehensive picture book. Perron uses simple rhyming text contrasted with more scientific information, including specific nomenclature, to help young readers identify patterns in different places in nature. Beginning with definitions, the author takes readers on a guided tour of the natural world, including plants, landforms, coral, waves, and rocks to demonstrate the breadth of patterns available to the observant person. Vividly colored photographs with both broad, encompassing views and detailed close-ups are enthralling. These help readers connect with the text and with their own environments. The rhyming text is brief and interesting enough to keep the youngest readers engaged; older readers will love learning about basalt columns, barchan dunes, venation, and why there are ripples in the sand under the water. VERDICT With content that will appeal to a wide range of readers, this beautiful book about patterns is excellent choice for elementary libraries.—Debbie Tanner

School Library Journal

2023-01-12
Looking outside, what kinds of patterns can you see?

Psychotherapist Perron debuts with this presentation of a variety of patterns from the natural world. Intriguing photographs from a variety of stock sources reveal designs in nature. These are further described in rhyming couplets (in an AABB pattern, pointed out in an afterword) and explanatory text boxes. Spread by spread, Perron covers leaf veins, ridges and valleys, sand dunes, corals, wave ripples, sea foam, earth layers, basalt columns, snowflakes, mud cracks, and the spiraling curves of plants and animals. The last line of each stanza begins with “patterns, patterns,” providing a nice repetition for reading aloud. The text boxes offer additional information for curious readers, things like why the spacing of valleys seems consistent and how erosion and sediment buildup can change a river’s path. While the book is lovely to look at, it doesn’t convey the same sense of wonder and connection that the more mathematically focused titles by Sarah C. and Richard P. Campbell (Growing Patterns, 2010; Mysterious Patterns, 2014) did. Fractals, tessellation, and the Fibonacci sequence are named but not explained. The choice and arrangement of topics seems random. But the invitation to look more closely at the natural world is clear and welcome. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Intriguing encouragement to consider the intersection of mathematics and nature. (activity, glossary, further reading, websites) (Informational picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews