Patterned after books of hours, "The Big Field: a Child's Year Under the Southern Cross" is a month-by-month account of life on a farm at the edge of the Atlantic Rainforest in South America. Birds, flowers, butterflies, and bugs abound in a warm and gentle story of three young children living on their grandmother’s farm and learning from her the seasonal changes and simple activities that often mirror those of children in the northern hemisphere. The subtext of the grandmother’s determination to reforest the big field of the title gives hope and a way forward to young children as they learn about nature conservation in the modern world.