RAIN: As Essential As Poetry

Eerdman Books for Young Readers, October, 2019

I'm excited to celebrate the launch of a brand new picture book by Swedish author, illustrator, and poet Anders Holmer: RAIN.  It ticked all the right boxes for me before I even opened the cover: nature, poetry (strongly accessible haiku, in fact), breathtaking art, and a diverse world perspective. 
I don't often post an extra-large version of covers, but in this case it feels necessary. Even at this size, you may struggle to view the minuscule falling particles in the image. These and other suggestions of rain in the various scenes throughout the book are "raining down" on the characters and situations. These characters are as diverse as the locales, and each individual feels to me to be totally absorbed in a distinct story. 
On this cover image, for example, those gray-green slashes poking through the snow are early evidence of lichen underlying an arctic/tundra region. The snow cover, clothing, and transportation methods suggest that the moisture from above may be of the slushy-sleety variety, the type that stings the skin and renders old snow surfaces as slick as ice, literally. 
And yet, after surviving yet another long, dark, frozen season, such a rain swells the heart:

"Calf licking the first

fresh green wedges of lichen.

And soon, butterflies!"

Like this poem, each in this book is finely crafted, adhering to the rigid expectations of Haiku, a traditional Japanese form:

Three unrhymed lines (5-7-5 syllables)

Total of 17 syllables

Strong imagery

Often nature scenes

Capturing a specific moment or emotion in time

In this book, creator Holmer has mastered all of the above while developing a series of global scenes that underscore the universal nature of the moments and emotions portrayed. Young readers and writers will enjoy and be inspired to write their own haiku- a seemingly simple challenge. If that happens, I'd urge you to emphasize content over syllable count. (There are many poetry scholars who accept adaptations to the pattern, although the three line, seventeen syllable total are useful guides.) 

I've shared other haiku collections HERE, and HERE. Themed and cumulative haiku that form a sequential narrative story are easiest to explore for beginners (Dog-Ku and Won-Ton). Holmer declares RAIN as the unifying theme for this series. Rain is unbiquitous in every climate, including desert zones. It offers a common thread among all human experience. The emotional journeys of these scenes also have a commonality to them, with each double spread revealing relationships, struggles, and suggesting open-ended resolutions. Independent writers could well imagine a story from each of the twelve spreads, guided by the haiku text, and then harvest details from images on the page while imagining a before and after related to the scene. 

At this point I'll pat myself on the back because I'm going to resist including any other examples of Holmer's poems, even though I'm eager to share them all. I wouldn't dare include more, though, because doing so without the book in hand would fail to deliver the full impact their power. The conceptual design and flow of emotional content from scene to scene is enhanced by the book's design. The tall trim size allows for double spreads to open as in a landscape display of artwork (which each is). Most use color tones that are subdued but surprisingly intense, whether in the depths of a rainforest river or a petal-strewn Japanese garden. 

The scenes (puffins near a lighthouse, running horses on a plain, a forest fire with fleeing animals, and so many more) unfold with quiet authority, providing enough realism to spark background knowledge of climate zones (and perhaps some geography research), yet they provide a slightly abstracted quality that is inherent in the poetry form, allowing space for each reader to enter and inhabit the pages and the poems. 

Rain is a human experience, as are its consequences (floods, droughts, crops, famine, dismay, delight). It is a resource and a necessity. After reading and re-reading this haiku collection, many times over, and after sitting with the lives revealed in scene-after-scene, I'm convinced the same can be said about the new picture book, RAIN. For your own reading and for young readers of any age, make it a point to get and share this book. Return to it often. It is both a resource and a necessity. 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.