The fact that these protests were inspired by and are being led by youth sparks hope in a nearly hopeless situation. Along with acting like responsible adults and demanding changes through our adult options, let's be sure to make one of those actions involve the very youngest "activists", getting kids to truly engage with Mama Earth.
A recent release is exactly the kind of picture book that can become a lifelong favorite and generational sharing book to help even the youngest readers/audience notice, enjoy, and appreciate the incredible offerings of Mama Earth all year long.
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| Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2019 |
A YEAR WITH MAMA EARTH is written by Rebecca Grabill and illustrated by Rebecca Green. If you click on that title, it will take you to a page featuring the book and providing a link to a book trailer about it.
This lovely offering spans a full year starting with fall, exactly perfect for back-to-school leaf collecting and pumpkin-collecting field trips. The visual images are delightfully diverse, active, cooperative, curious, and suitably toned to each season. Those images are inspired by text that is lightly lyrical while dense with figurative language which personifies nature as Mama Earth. From rustling autumn wings to cool Earth's hot (summer) face, her sighs invite the first frost and stir laughing winds that spin maple leaves, seeds, and children.
Season after season passes with page turns that shift color, mood, and content as subtly and inevitably as calendar pages slip away.
This book will work perfectly as a read-through, but invites you to return often to visit a page at a time, to explore and compare the developing changes of nature as the year unfolds. It also offers mentor text for writing with sensory detail from intense observational inspirations. More than that, as both the author and illustrator notes urge in back matter, it invites young people (all of us?) to GO OUTSIDE, to notice, to enjoy, to appreciate what a remarkable planet we are privileged to inhabit.
This four-season portrayal works anywhere in the world. For those whose lives and living spaces it mirrors, use it to launch investigations into other regional cycles and climates. For those from other climates, this presents an experiential exploration of the often-assumed four seasons, but could inspire readers to develop their own text and images of Mama Earth as they experience it.
But, as I say at every opportunity, enjoy as every picture books meant to be read- to simply enjoy it. All the rest comes later. First time through (and often in rereads) simply experience the words and images as they were meant to be enjoyed- as a celebration of our loving Mama Earth.
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