In NovemberWritten by Cynthia Rylant
Illustrated by Jill Kastner
Voyager/Harcourt, 2000
In November has a spare, lyrical text. It is not a storybook. It’s like a book-length prose poem that speaks to the essence of a month when the colorful beauty and fruitful bounty of the fall season is in the past. In the book, Rylant talks about snow blanketing the ground, trees that have lost their leaves, birds moving away for winter, animals sleeping more, food having an “orange smell” and tasting better, and people coming together to share a special holiday with each other. Rylant repeats the phrase “In November” several times in her text. This use of repetition throughout the book is one of the author’s writing techniques—along with the rhythm and flow of her evocative language—that helps her text read like poetry.
Here are some excerpts from the book to give you the “autumnal” flavor of In November:
In November, the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers. They know it is time to be still.
In November, animals sleep more. The air is chilly and they shiver.
Cats pile up in the corners of barns.
Mice pile up under logs. Bees pile up in deep, earthy holes.
And dogs lie before the fire.
The book closes with my favorite passage:
In November, at winter’s gate, the stars are brittle. The sun is a sometime friend. And the world has tucked her children in, with a kiss on their heads, till spring.
Kastern’s full-color illustrations done in oil paints are as evocative of the month as are Rylant’s words. The uncluttered illustrations with changing perspectives and close-ups of leaves and birds and other animals draw a reader into the quiet text…into a “chilling” time of year when people and many animals draw into closer confines to keep themselves warm and to shelter themselves from the cold and long hours of darkness.
What Do You Do with a Book Like This?
Write a Collaborative Class Prose Poem
In November would be a great book to read aloud in the early elementary grades at this time of year—a book that could serve as a springboard for a creative writing exercise. So often children are asked to write about the signs of fall…but usually during an earlier part of the season when pumpkins and apples are growing plump and round in garden patches and orchards and trees are wearing leafy crowns of bright autumnal colors—or, in November, they’re asked to write about all the things they are thankful for as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches.
Why not lead students in writing a collaborative “In November” prose poem modeled after Rylant’s
4 Comments on In November: What Do You Do with a Book Like This?, last added: 11/9/2009
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Great idea! I could do that with my own kids. Sounds like a beautiful book.
Thank you for this! My mom is a 5th grade teacher, and I'm going to send her the link to this post!
This looks gorgeous! Will have to check it out.
Rebecca,
I'm glad you like my idea. I did a similar writing activity with my second grade students using Rylant's book WHEN I WAS YOUNG IN THE MOUNTAINS. My students just changed Rylant's repetitive phrase and wrote individual books about their own lives--or one special event in their lives.
Kate,
I hope your mother likes my suggestion for writing a collaborative class prose poem.
Laura,
I'm sure you'll like Rylant's book.