Poetry of Earth
Selected and illustrated by Adrienne Adams
Did you know that Earth Day started way back in the 1970’s? For many it marks, as a website quotes, “the birth of the modern environmental movement.”
Way back in 1962, author Rachel Carson began the run up to concern for the environment with her New York Times bestseller, “Silent Spring.” It generated with its sale of 500,000 copies in 24 countries, a call for public awareness of concern for the gradation of the environment and by inference, its impact on public health.
Change is a hard thing to measure and it is usually only measurable AFTER it has occurred.
That is why the picture book’s value in its ability to both entertain and enlighten, is so underrated in some quarters in the sometimes headlong drive to get to the chapter book. So much is missed and discounted in what the picture book has offered in the past and continues to offer in the present. And Ms. Adams’ book is a perfect example.
Adrienne Adams is the winner of two Caldecott Honor books in 1960 and 1962 for “The Day We Saw the Sun Come Up” and “Houses From The Sun”. Both were done with text by Alice E. Goudey.
She is also the illustrator of ALA notable books for her Grimm’s Brothers versions of “The Shoemaker and the Elves, ”Jorinde and Joringel,” and “Thumbelina” by Hans Christian Andersen.
In “Poetry of the Earth,” Ms. Adams has chosen thirty-three poems from renowned poets such as Robert Frost, Randall Jarrell, Carl Sandburg, William Butler Yeats, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, celebrating everything from buffaloes to bats, snails to specks, sandhill cranes to squirrels and tiger lilies to tortoises.
Listen to this small sample from Robert Frost’s, “Dust of Snow”:
“The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree”
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.”
Young readers, once you get past their understanding of the word, “rued”, will certainly get the visceral feeling of how one single moment can change a day; one small second in time can change a minute from moody to merry. Kids do it all the time; it’s part of being a child!
And its impetus for them can be a poem, a line from a book, a hug, a smile, or a touch of the hand.
Let Earth Day this year, and books that echo both the shelter and nourishment it gives humanity, be the jumping off spot for a teachable moment with young readers. Share books with them that celebrate how wonderful and healing the earth can be; what a sacred space it is, and how much it is in our care.
Below is a link to 50 fun and engaging hands on Earth Day Activities for young ones.
http://tinkerlab.com/fifty-earth-day-activities/
A Woggle of Witches
By Adrienne Adams
Halloween has morphed slowly from a night out for trick or treaters into a huge holiday in the United States. And so, as the run up to All Hallows Eve begins, here’s a Way Back Wednesday picture book gem from the early 70’s.
I was curious about the term “woggle” from Adrienne Adams’ title, called “A Woggle of Witches.” Seems a “woggle” as defined in the dictionary is the thing that attaches neckerchiefs. If you have a Boy Scout in the family, or love scarves, you will know what I mean.
But my husband ventured that the title infers more a “gaggle” or gathering, than anything else. That’s what I think too.
Your young reader will love the haunting atmosphere created in Adams’ wood full of witches, lounging in hammocks amid the treetops on All Hallows Eve.
“On a certain night, when the moon is high,
one calls, “Wake up. Time for the feast is come.”
And feast the witches do …on bat stew.
Then, it’s a quick hop on a broom to circle the moon on a cloudless flight.
Adrienne Adams’atmospheric and mood-filled art of witches winging their way skyward, in formations Blue Angel pilots would envy, is fanciful and fun. Her use of color in green, black, yellow and purple makes this Halloween holiday woggle witch gathering a reading trip to enjoy with your young readers this season.
And its ending is sure to please with its “who really scares who” scenario as the woggle stumbles upon a “woogle” of young trick or treaters in a cornfield.
“Let’s get out of here!”they cry.
All quivering and quaking,
they leapt on their brooms,
and slant toward the sky.”
“A Woggle of Witches” by Adrienne Adams is a Halloween sweet treat picture book not to be missed.
*Here’s a link to another favorite witch of mine. She’s a witch called Hazel that appeared in this 1952 cartoon called “Trick or Treat,”with Donald Duck’s nephews named Huey, Dewey and Louie.
Donald wants to trick, but Hazel gets the nephews their treats in a witchy way.
Boo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-6LvIJKb_E
Poetry of Earth
Selected and illustrated by Adrienne Adams
Thought I might hit a veritable trifecta here, with one title meeting all three criterion that I was aiming for. Adrienne Adams’ title hits the mark with her glorious picture book aptly fitting in with April’s National Poetry Month, a Way Back Wednesday classic picture book designation AND its subject matter dovetailing with the celebration of Earth Day 2015 on April 22nd. How’s that for a triple threat for young readers in one title?
Did you know that Earth Day started way back in the 1970’s? For many it marks, as a website quotes, “the birth of the modern environmental movement.”
Way back in 1962, author Rachel Carson began the run up to concern for the environment with her New York Times bestseller, “Silent Spring.” It generated with its sale of 500,000 copies in 24 countries, a call for public awareness of concern for the gradation of the environment and by inference, its impact on public health.
Change is a hard thing to measure and it is usually only measurable AFTER it has occurred.
That is why the picture book’s value in its ability to both entertain and enlighten, is so underrated in some quarters in the sometimes headlong drive to get to the chapter book. So much is missed and discounted in what the picture book has offered in the past and continues to offer in the present. And Ms. Adams’ book is a perfect example.
Adrienne Adams is the winner of two Caldecott Honor books in 1960 and 1962 for “The Day We Saw the Sun Come Up” and “Houses From The Sun”. Both were done with text by Alice E. Goudey.
She is also the illustrator of ALA notable books for her Grimm’s Brothers versions of “The Shoemaker and the Elves, ”Jorinde and Joringel,” and “Thumbelina” by Hans Christian Andersen.
In “Poetry of the Earth,” Ms. Adams has chosen thirty-three poems from renowned poets such as Robert Frost, Randall Jarrell, Carl Sandburg, William Butler Yeats, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, celebrating everything from buffaloes to bats, snails to specks, sandhill cranes to squirrels and tiger lilies to tortoises.
Listen to this small sample from Robert Frost’s, “Dust of Snow”:
“The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree”
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.”
Young readers, once you get past their understanding of the word, “rued”, will certainly get the visceral feeling of how one single moment can change a day; one small second in time can change a minute from moody to merry. Kids do it all the time; it’s part of being a child!
And its impetus for them can be a poem, a line from a book, a hug, a smile, or a touch of the hand.
Let Earth Day this year, and books that echo both the shelter and nourishment it gives humanity, be the jumping off spot for a teachable moment with young readers. Share books with them that celebrate how wonderful and healing the earth can be; what a sacred space it is, and how much it is in our care.
Below is a link to 50 fun and engaging hands on Earth Day Activities for young ones.
http://tinkerlab.com/fifty-earth-day-activities/
An Easter classic, The Easter Egg Artist by Adrienne Adams, 1976...
2 Comments on Adrienne Adams, last added: 4/9/2012
super-cute!
Thanks for linking to me!