This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake

by Nicholas Ruddock, Ashley Barron (Illustrator)

Overview

Fifteen poems explore close encounters with animals … and choosing to respond tenderly.

Whether it’s helping a hummingbird escape, respecting a bear’s habitat, admiring a heron’s beauty, or giving way to ants at a picnic, the human response in these poems is to do no harm, and to help whenever possible. The poems follow a seasonal progression, ending with a final poem that imagines where each animal might be on a winter night.

Inspired by personal experiences, Nicholas Ruddock’s poems are simply written, with a pleasing rhyme, and fun to read aloud. In the spirit of the text, Ashley Barron’s cut-paper collage illustrations portray each creature with respectful realism, in environments ranging from rural and wild to urban and suburban.

A delightful dip into poetry for young animal lovers!

 

Key Text Features

illustrations

poems

 

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4

Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.6

With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.4

Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773067841
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	02/06/2024
Pages:	36
Product dimensions:	9.75(w) x 8.62(h) x (d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

NICHOLAS RUDDOCK is a writer and physician whose novels, short stories, and poetry for adults have won multiple prizes in Canada, the UK, and Ireland. His novel The Parabolist was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award in 2011. Most recently, in 2023, he has won the Nona Heaslip Prize from Exile Quarterly and been shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Award. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.

ASHLEY BARRON’s vibrant cut-paper collage illustrations appear in many books, including This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake by Nicholas Ruddock, Chaiwala! by Priti Maheshwari (TD Grade One Book Giveaway), My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf (Schneider Family Book Award), City Baby by Laurie Elmquist (a Bank Street Best Book of the Year) and Pretty Tricky by Etta Kaner (a Kirkus Best Picture Book and an Outstanding Science Trade Book). Ashley lives with her partner in Toronto, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

Quaint poems, charmingly illustrated.” — Kirkus Reviews

“A solid purchase for collections with animal-loving or poetry-loving readers.” — School Library Journal

“Both children and adults will delight in author Nicholas Ruddock's rhythmic cadence and [illustrator Ashley] Barron's exquisite and lifelike illustrations ... This collection of joyful, optimistic poems, so delicately and gaily illustrated, gently offers ways to be observant and kind in nature.” — Canadian Children's Book News

“This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake, a visual treat, carries a powerful message of harmony.” — CM: Canadian Review of Materials

“A beautiful tribute to nature ... This is a picture book that could be pored over many times.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“An animated volume from a versatile author.” — The Telegram

From the Publisher

Quaint poems, charmingly illustrated.

Kirkus Reviews

An animated volume from a versatile author.

The Telegram

A beautiful tribute to nature ... This is a picture book that could be pored over many times.

Winnipeg Free Press

This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake, a visual treat, carries a powerful message of harmony.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

A solid purchase for collections with animal-loving or poetry-loving readers.

School Library Journal

Both children and adults will delight in author Nicholas Ruddock's rhythmic cadence and [illustrator Ashley] Barron's exquisite and lifelike illustrations ... This collection of joyful, optimistic poems, so delicately and gaily illustrated, gently offers ways to be observant and kind in nature.

Canadian Children's Book News

An animated volume from a versatile author.

Telegram

2023-11-04
A seasonal cycle of poems examines the gentle confrontations that result when human-built environments share space with animal habitats.

Ruddock composes most poems as two or three quatrains with an ABCB rhyme scheme. While Barron’s lively cut-paper collages depict racially diverse children as the presumed narrators of the animal interactions, the balladlike stanzas, peppered with old-fashioned phrasing, belie the authorial voice of a ruminating adult. After the titular snake is nearly stepped on, “we trapped her in a coffee cup, / a playing card to seal, / and moved her to the nearby woods, / no longer under heel.” In “Bear,” a child avers, “One morning I set out upon / a quarter-mile jog, / when suddenly a lumbering bear / clambered from the bog.” The child “wisely” turns around and walks away; upon safely looking back, the child sees the creature “snuffling at blueberries”—she “cared not a bit for me.” Several poems visit interactions that will be familiar to many: picnic ants, a skunk on the porch, a squirrel intent on a pet dog’s kibble. Other entries focus on a fleeting twilight encounter between a moose and a family in a car and herons observed from a canoe. Barron supplies a bright abundance of supporting plants and animals for the poems’ spring-to-winter arc. Ruddock sticks a nice landing with “Winter,” citing each foregoing animal’s current status—including, “curled in a nest of moss / …our tiny fragile snake.”

Quaint poems, charmingly illustrated. (Picture book/poetry. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews