To Be Like The Sun

To Be Like the Sun by Susan Marie Swanson, Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Picture book for the beginning reader, ages 3-6

Four Star Rating

To Be Like the Sun describes a young girl’s enjoyment in the process of growing a sunflower, from seed, in her garden. Her ambition for success in growing the sunflower as well as her love for her beautiful creation shines through the text.

This book, written in lyrical free verse, is as bright and happy as the illustrations on the pages. While reading this story, I was taken back to my childhood and the excitement that came with a new project or adventure. This excitement still resides within me today when I begin a new semester in school or embark on a new chapter in life. The story begins with the girl welcoming the seed, the new project, into her life with curiosity and anxiousness of what is to come. As the story unfolds, Susan Marie Swanson uses in-depth descriptions, imagery, and figurative language to captivate the reader. The simple illustrations do a good job of illustrating the text, but outside of the text, the illustrations to not offer any extra insight. As the different steps in the sunflower growing process are describes, the reader feel anticipation, right alongside the girl in the story, of what will happen next and when the flower will bloom. Lastly, Swanson uses precise vocabulary within her story to describe the seed, the dirt, the work, the rain, the wind, the sky, and the stars. According to Chapter Three of Tunnell and Jacobs Children’s Literature Briefly the precise vocabulary, figurative language, and imagery used within this story, make To Be Like the Sun a well-written book.

This story is quite simple on the outside but filled with hidden meanings on the inside. Since this story describes the process, anticipation, and lifecycle of a sunflower, I would use this story to introduce or conclude a lesson about plants, lifecycles, or the four seasons, as all are touched upon in To Be Like the Sun. This book could act as a great read-aloud when introducing a lesson on plants as it describes the process of growing a plant in a way that will connect with the students. I could also read this story to my class at the end of a plant unit and have them share or write about their connections to the story. For example, I could have them write about the similarities and differences between their plant-growing experience and their emotional experience compared to that of the little girl in the story. Both of these ideas represent the students reading the story from an efferent point of view, but the second idea ties in the transactional theory which suggests that the story makes a connection between the reader and the text. Having kids make a connection between the story and themselves is a great thing to do because these connections are what get kids reading and keep kids reading.