Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
The children’s picture book Grandpa’s Garden by Stella Fry and illustrated by Sheila Moxley (Barefoot Books, 2012) follows a child helping his grandpa in, as the title indicates, caring for his garden. They plant the vegetables and fertilize them with compost. The boy waters the growing plants and waits to see the sprouts. Together, grandpa and
Summer Days and Nights by Wong Herbert Yee (Henry Holt, 2012) is a sweet story of a girl enjoying nature during some bright summer days. The illustrations are done with colored pencils on watercolor paper, and the soft feel adds to the relaxing feel of the girl’s summer day. I especially like the cycle through the
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook Press, 2012) is full of lush illustrations celebrating the different colors of green, from forest green to pea green to faded green. Each page has a die-cut portion that looks on to a previous or subsequent page, thus emphasizing how different things (even “lime green” limes) are also
A Child’s Calendar by John Updike, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman was awarded a Caldecott Honor in the 1960s and it’s not just Hyman’s soft and detailed illustrations that are noteworthy. John Updike’s poems give life to the seasons, from the frozen stanzas of January to the warm months of summer and the festivities of
It’s fall! Although I’ll be the first to tell you that I love spring, summer, and fall equally well throughout the year (I could do without winter and the month of August), once the leaves start falling and crunching under my feet and the weather gets cool enough to pull out my sweaters, I consider
I sometimes think poetry is at it’s best when it’s written and illustrated for children. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman and Pamela Zagarinski is one such example. The illustrations capture the metaphors of a world changing with the seasons, and the poem is simply beautiful. In the poem, Joyce
The Ugly Duckling illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, with Hans Christian Andersen’s text adapted by Jerry Pinkney (Caldecott Honor 2000), is a picture book with sprawling, all-encompassing detailed watercolors. The illustrations do the traditional, familiar story justice. Pinkney does an incredible job of getting in to detailed “close-ups” of the scenes. From the birth of the ducklings
Why is autumn always, poetically, so sad? It’s a good season in it’s own right. Yet, the poetry always dwells on the “growing older” analogy. Here’s some Shakespeare.
Page [tcb_pagination_current_page] of [tcb_pagination_total_pages]
