The Table Where Rich People Sit

Title: The Table Where Rich People Sit 
Author: Byrd Baylor
Illustrator: Peter Parnall
Type: Picture book
Age: Any age
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

This picture book is about a little girl, "Mountain Girl" who believes that her family is poor. Her parents are reluctant to her theory and insist "We are rich."  Her parents teach her the importance of valuing the things you do have and not things you do not have.  Mountain Girl learns a valuable lesson in appreciating mother nature, family and life.

In my opinion this is a great book for anyone, I actually think that adults would get more out of this book then children. So many of us are too consumed with fashion, fame, and fortune that we never take the time to "smell the flowers." The way Byrd Baylor describes nature is incredible. There is a line in the book when mountain girl's father says, "When a cactus blooms you should be there to watch it because it might be a color you won't see again any other day of your life." This line makes me want to jump on a plan to Arizona or New Mexico and sit around for hours watching different cacti bloom. The illustrations in the book are minimal and lack color but at the same time when you pay close attention are incredible. The people in the book lack detail and often are just silhouettes in the background but when you look at the scenery and animals there is so much more detail. To me this is painting a picture of what she is expressing in words. The illustrations make me appreciate the world around  me.

At first it really surprised me how much this book lacked color in the illustrations. I thought this type of book which stresses the importance of nature would be a great opportunity to use bright colors and drawings to express the things about nature that cannot be articulated. Then when I went back through the book and looked at just the illustrations I saw how nature came to life in inanimate objects and other aspects of the book. For example, in one of the illustrations there is a picture of a table but when you look closely the table has rings circling out of it, which to me gives the appearance that it is a tree stump. In another picture, the sunset is just on the horizon and it has all these lines streaming up to the sky. The lines streaming up to the sky, to me, looks like it is a camp fire burning up into the sky. There are many hidden images and messages in this book, and it's up to the reader to find them!