Have you ever imagined what it would be like to visit the rain forest? What would you see? What would you hear? What would it feel like? Jane Yolen activates and brings to life the tropical rain forest in Welcome to the Green House. Yolen gives the reader a complete tour of the rain forest by first describing the warm, wet days. While envisioning the rain forest while reading, I felt myself clam and warm-up as though it were summer. Yolen describes the towering trees and the plethora of animals including the sloth, the capuchin monkey, hummingbirds, and the golden toads. Yolen doesn't merely list the animals, but she describes the animals and some of the animals' actions. The sloth is a "slow, green-coated sloth," while "waking lizards lunge" and silver fish plunge." Yolen appeals to the reader's auditory sense too as long-horned beetles "crinch-crunch" and bees "pick-buzz-hum-buzz." All of the sounds are set off in italics to emphasize them. Yolen explores both the daytime and nighttime.\.Although rich in its writing style, Welcome to the Green House is also rich in its illustrations of the rain forest. Each illustration covers the entire two-page spread. A closeup of both the canopy and down on the ground floor are shown. The sun can only peak through narrow gaps in the canopy. Silver fish swim through the stream. In some pictures, the reader sees the intricacies of a leaf or the toad's habitat in the rain forest. All of the illustrations help to show just how much activity takes place in the rain forest simultaneously.
This book is a great resource to guide students in adding their own sensory details, accurate descriptions, or vivid illustrations to a piece of writing. Rich adjectives flow endlessly in this book. On one page, Yolen lists all different shades of green visible in the rain forest: "dark green, light green, emerald green, bright green, copper green, blue green, ever-new green house." Even without the illustrations, I think readers would be able to visualize the rain forest.
On the final page of this book, there is a Did You Know? section that talks about the current human threat to rain forests. As the School Library Journal notes, this book would be "ideal for introducing rain forest ecology in the primary grades...The next best thing to a guided tour." Perhaps this could be the opener for a unit on activism, persuasive essays, and/or persuasive letter-writing. Why should we save the rain forests? What can we do to preserve them? I feel that students like to a have a purpose when they write. It always helps to write about something that matters and is relevant. What better topic then is there than the rain forest?
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