Age: Preschool-1st grade
Animals: River dwellers

A magnificent interpretation of "Over in the Meadow" with text that flows and meter that actually works. Berkes has done this traditional song with several other habitats and their creatures (so I hope she could make it work). This book gets an extra star for all the supplementary material, too, including a map of the US and the highlighted river of each animal, a three sentence blurb on each animal, a couple paragraphs on river conservation, distinguishing from fact and fiction, tips for teachers, tips from the illustrator, and musical notation of the song. Phew!

Also a bonus is that Berkes includes the numerical number on each page to help with learning numbers. There is an unfortunate side to this book. The animals do not have the number of babies as given in this rhyme.