Moving from morning to night, 14 short, child-centered poems each begin with the words “Things to do if you are … ” followed by a variety of everyday objects, creatures, and aspects of the natural world: dawn, birds, a honeybee, an acorn, a snail, etc. Each poem is imaginative and playful (“Things to do if you are the sky / Stay clear and blue / let the sun smile down / don’t grow grumpy, gray, and frown … ”) and taken as a whole the collection can inspire creative thinking and writing. Bright watercolor illustrations show a single small girl interacting with her environment throughout the day. (Ages 3-7)

With playful prose and vivid art, Things to Do brings to life the small moments and secret joys of a child's day. There are wonders everywhere. In the sky and on the ground—blooming in a flower bed, dangling from a silken thread, buzzing through the summer air—waiting ...waiting to be found. In this thoughtful and ingenious collection of poems, Elaine Magliaro, an elementary school teacher for more than three decades and a school librarian for three years, and illustrator Catia Chien provide a luminous glimpse of the ordinary wonders all around us.