Happy First Day of Spring!!!
Pay no attention to the fact that it's freezing cold and snowing!
SPRING is officially HERE!
We should definitely celebrate with spring-colored cake! Help yourselves :)
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Lemon Cake with Lavender Icing - pretty AND delicious :) |
In celebration of spring and getting outdoors, I have such a beautiful, beautiful book to share with you! I hope you'll love it as much as I do!
Step Gently OutWritten By: Helen Frost
Photography By: Rick Lieder
Candlewick, March 2012, Fiction
Themes/Topics: nature, insects, taking time to look closely, poetry
Suitable For: ages 2-7
Opening: "
Step gently out,/ be still, and watch a single blade of grass."
Brief Synopsis: (From the Booklist starred review) "
Nature’s miracles are often small and hard to capture, but in a syncopated harmony of text and image, Frost and Lieder manage to depict tiny moments as seen through a bugs-eye-view of the world... Moving from day to night, the poem makes for a soothing bedtime lullaby that includes a reminder to children about the book’s small creatures: "In song and dance / and stillness, / they share the world / with you.""Links To Resources: the back of the book includes lots of information on all the insects pictured - a resource all in itself. In addition, here are some
Insect Coloring Pages. Try taking some photographs of your own. Try writing a short poem about an insect.
Why I Like This Book: I am always in favor of books that encourage kids to go outside and look closely at the real world around them, really observe it, think about it, be part of it. I'm not an insect lover per se :), but this book is amazingly beautiful. I cannot stress enough how absolutely exquisite the photography is. Such detail! I wish I could share every page, but that would probably be frowned upon :) Here's one more little sample:
It's breathtaking, isn't it? and I think kids and adults alike will thoroughly enjoy looking at it, especially in combination with the poetic text which is as gorgeous in it's imagery as the photography is. This book is a feast for eyes and ears and hearts!
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit
Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF bloggers please be sure to leave your post-specific link in the list below so we can all come visit you! And now everyone go out and enjoy Spring! Just, if you live in my neck of the woods, put on your jacket... your hat... your snow boots... your scarf... your mittens... and then go frolic :)
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! :)
Step Gently Out
By Helen Frost
Photographs by Rick Lieder
Candlewick Press
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5601-0
Ages 3-8
On shelves now
I have lots of little soapboxes scattered around my home that I like to pounce on in idle moments. Big soapboxes. Little soapboxes. Anyone who knows me is forced to hear me expound from one of them at least once daily. It’s rare that I get to shove two of them together, though. Usually they represent separate entities that don’t overlap. Picking up the remarkably gorgeous work that is Helen Frost and Rick Lieder’s Step Gently Out, however, allows me to stack one soapbox on top of another. That may make them a little more difficult to balance on, but with practice I’ll have it down pat. From that perch I can then cry to the heavens above, “Why is there no poetry award for children’s books given out by the American Library Association?” while also bemoaning, “Why has a work of photography never won a Caldecott Award?” Yes, Step Gently Out appears to be a double threat. Poetry meets photography in a single undulating poem. And if my soapbox seems strange, it will make all the more sense when you learn that the pair behind the book includes the remarkable poet Helen Frost and photographer extraordinaire Rick Lieder. Put them both together and you’d be a fool to overlook this book for any reason whatsoever.
“Step gently out,” the book urges us. “… be still, and watch a single blade of grade.” As we follow the words and instructions we are brought in close to a wide array of common backyard insects. An ant lifts its head from the center of a yellow flower and is “bathed in golden light.” A spider weaves webs soaked in droplets and we hear that “they’re splashed with morning dew”. By the end we begin to understand them better and the text closes with “In song and dance and stillness, they share the world with you.” A final two-page spread at the end identifies all the insects shown in the book and gives some facts about their lives.
Reading through the book a couple times I couldn’t help but wonder if the photos came first or the poem. Did Ms. Frost see Lieder’s work and construct just the right poem to accompany the images? After all, there are specific mentions of many of the bugs you’ll find in the photographs. Or did Mr. Lieder read Ms. Frost’s poem and then set out to find the right insects required to carry her vision? Or (a third idea just came to me) was this a case of an already existing poem and already existing photographs coming together by a clever editor, seeming to fit from the start? I simply do not know.
For parents wishing to instill in their children a sense of Zen, often they’ll turn to something like Jon J. Muth’s Zen Shorts and the like. A worthy choice, but if what you are trying to do is to give your kids a sense of communion with nature on its most basic and essential level, Step Gently Out is the bett
STEP GENTLY OUT
Poem by Helen Frost
Photographs by Rick Lieder
Candlewick, 2012
Category: Nonfiction picture book (but truly for all ages)
It was the title that grabbed me first. Step Gently Out. There is an ethic in those words, and they have deep meaning for me. When the book was finally in my hands, though, it was the ant on the cover that pulled me in. He is not rendered in paints as I’d thought when I’d seen the book online, but photographed. Captured atop a slender leaf, antennae waving, stepping gently. Completely enchanting.
Would you believe that things got better from there?
Helen Frost’s text is charming, and I can tell you from personal experience that it holds up to repeated readings. Rick Lieder’s breathtaking images lend a hand, inspiring closer looks at blades of grass and silken threads both inside the book and, of course, out.
I find myself reading this one over and again. I’m in love. I think that every child on the planet should have a copy. I plan to start with the half-dozen kids who know me as Auntie Loree …