Patterns Everywhere
Review posted May 21, 2025.
Millbrook Press, 2023. 32 pages.
Review written November 22, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
Patterns Everywhere is a beautiful nonfiction book for primary-grade kids that will get them noticing many kinds of patterns in nature.
Each spread is dominated by a large photograph of something in nature, a simple rhyme about it with the rhyme scheme AABB (another pattern!) and a factual paragraph with more detail. It's attractively presented and shows a wide variety of things. Here's the introductory first spread:
Step outside. Let's find designs --
branching, cracking, spirals, lines.
Search the earth, the seas, the air.
Patterns, patterns everywhere.WHAT IS A PATTERN?
A pattern is a sequence that repeats in a predictable way. Nature is full of them! Some of nature's patterns are made of repeating geometric shapes. Other patterns are created by color or spacing.
The spreads after that show leaf veins, ridges and valleys, sand dunes, meandering rivers, corals, wave ripples, sea foam, layered earth, basalt columns, snowflakes, mud cracks, and spiral plants and animals. There are two pages of more information at the back, including some activities.
This is a simple introduction to patterns, attractively presented, and will open kids eyes to the patterns around them.