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Baby-Preschool

 Where Once There Was a Wood
by Denise Fleming

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc.; Reprint edition (April 1, 2000)

Denise Fleming’s book, _Where Once There Was a Wood_, contains not only a wonderful parade of woodland, meadow, and creek wildlife done in paper pulp paintings, but also a subtle message: Wild creatures need space, shelter, water and food to survive. The habitats represented in the book were once near Fleming’s home in Ohio and were part of the inspiration for her first book, _In the Tall, Tall Grass_; these habitats were destroyed during the making of  a neighboring housing development. Before they disappeared, she collected and dried bits of the plants that were there. These bits were then incorporated into the pulp of the painting that wraps around the book’s front and back covers and in the white borders of each painting inside - except for one, the double spread painting at the story’s end that shows what stands there now: “...houses side by side twenty houses deep.”

Fleming dedicated her book to “...Indigo,  Sam, Emily, Molly, and Rachel - The Future”- the children of two of her friends and her own daughter, since her desire, in writing  the story, was to motivate children (and the grownups who care about them) to notice and perhaps save the habitats around them before it becomes too late, as it was in Fleming’s own neighborhood.

 To help readers inspired by her story, Fleming included in the back of the book several pages of information on building wildlife refuges in backyards or other areas and a page of addresses that readers can use to send off for more information on wildlife attraction and preservation. The combination of lovely nature paintings done in Fleming’s unique style (her most detailed efforts to date), the slow poetic story and gentle ending warning , and the information provided to help interested readers go further with the subject make _Where Once There Was a Wood_ a valuable addition to any library used by children.

-Betty Winslow

Betty Winslow is a writer and school librarian from Bowling Green, Ohio.   Her writing has appeared in many places, among them FamilyFun, Christian Library Journal, Guideposts, Writer's Digest, and six anthologies (so far).