Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife

by Sarah` Grace Tuttle, Amy Schimler-Safford (Illustrator)

Overview

A poetic book highlighting everyday nature

The perfect blend of science and poetry, Hidden City demonstrates that nature can thrive anywhere, even in highly populated areas. In this graceful collection of poems, skyscrapers serve as perches for falcons, streetlights attract an insect buffet for hungry bats, and an overgrown urban lot offers shelter to both flora and fauna. Hidden City also includes engageing supplementary materials, which provide scientific information about the animals and plants featured in the book.

Coupled with beautiful collage illustrations, the poems in Hidden City offer readers the perfect reminder to notice and care about their environment. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802854599
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/08/2018
Series:	Spectacular STEAM for Curious Readers (SSCR)
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	598,457
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 12.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sarah Grace Tuttle holds degrees in both environmental studies and children's book writing. Hidden City, her debut book, combines her passion for writing and dedication to ecology. She lives in Massachusetts, where she helps facilitate a local conservation group.

Amy Schimler-Safford is a designer and children’s book illustrator. She grew up in Miami, a city full of all kinds of unique plants and animals. She now lives in a wooded area in Georgia, where she frequently sees woodpeckers, beavers, herons, and deer. Visit her website at www.amyschimler.com.

Editorial Reviews

02/05/2018
Debut author Tuttle and illustrator Schimler-Safford celebrate the plants and creatures that thrive in cities and towns in 27 understated poems and richly textured digital illustrations. Tuttle packs notable tension into her pared-down poems, which move subtly through the seasons. In one moody spread, “little brown bats/ hunt/ with a/ dart!/ and a/ swoop!/ and a hasty/ wing-scoop!” beneath a streetlight’s glare; on the facing page, a harvestman (daddy long legs) “splits open its body” as it molts, “leaving behind only/ an empty exoskeleton.” Elsewhere, a red-tailed blackbird chases away a hawk to protect its marsh nest, and ant colonies wage war on the sidewalk (“Antennae wave/ legs grip/ mandibles rip”). Readers will be left realizing that nature’s miniature dramas are closer than they think. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Anna Olswanger, Olswanger Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Marietta Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews
"Paired with Schimler-Safford's breathtaking digital collages, Tuttle's 28 free-verse poems and engaging end notes center on representatives from the plant, animal, and insect kingdoms commonly found in North American urban and suburban settings. . . . This celebration of urban wildlife subtly informs as it delights."

Booklist
"Bright collage illustrations capture the frenetic energy of city life, offering up levels of detail that will entertain kids through repeated readings. . . . An exuberant, early-STEM romp that celebrates the environment."

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"Twenty-eight free-verse poems treat the often underappreciated flora and fauna of cities. . . . Short-lined verse cleverly employs sound effects, repetition, and pattern to add interest. . . . Digital collage illustrations turn the poems into luminous slices of beauty."

School Library Journal
"This enjoyable collection introduces a wide variety of urban wildlife in an accessible way."

Spirituality & Practice
"Cities may have lots of buildings and concrete streets, but they are also homes to plants, trees, birds, mammals, insects, and other examples of "nature." You just have to know where to look. This book, with gorgeous collage illustrations by Amy Schimler-Safford, is a good start."

From the Publisher

04/01/2018
PreS-Gr 2—The city pulses with nature in this collection of 27 short poems that take a closer look at the habits of many plants, insects, birds, and animals. Beginning with a mother mouse scurrying back and forth under the table with scraps of paper to build her nest, the poems deftly steer readers through the cycle of a year. Dandelions sprout at the bus stop bench, and pigeons "strut/turn/dip" in a courtship dance. Community gardens grow, and raccoon kits learn how to hunt for dinner in garbage cans ("place paws firmly and/push /push again/push again/until/CRASH!/ a feast spills out of the bin."). Large spreads of bright collagelike digital art subtly introduce the seasonal shifts, while the poetry uses sound, imagery, and a little humor to make each flora or fauna recognizable and part of the natural rhythm of the city. As winter settles in, the slim volume closes where it began, inside a human residence. There, a house cricket on a heating vent chirps a "Winter Song" to call his mate. The author has a background in environmental studies, and the book's back matter includes a small bibliography for further reading and "Fun Facts about the Wildlife in These Poems" with a fascinating extra piece of information about each poem's subject. VERDICT This enjoyable collection introduces a wide variety of urban wildlife in an accessible way. A great addition.—Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

2018-02-04
A lyric glance at what city critters are up to.Paired with Schimler-Safford's breathtaking digital collages, Tuttle's 28 free-verse poems and engaging endnotes center on representatives from the plant, animal, and insect kingdoms commonly found in North American urban and suburban settings yet often overlooked or taken for granted. Bats, elms, mice, snails, dandelions all figure large here as Tuttle explores how these beings make their homes in seemingly inhospitable environs. "Moss in sidewalk cracks / sends up delicate shoots / for shoes to / tread on / break off / carry away"; meanwhile, "on the side of a house / ladybugs / tuck under shingles" preparing "for their long winter sleep," and "a mother mouse / … / carries / forgotten paper away / to build her nest." Throughout the work, Schimler-Safford's brightly shaded collages, often reproduced in double-page spreads, create a dazzling, multidimensional effect that deftly echoes the vast scenes Tuttle describes, such as red-winged blackbirds amid the cattails of a marsh or a "Sunflower Buffet," where golden flowers towering atop sinewy vines yield nourishment to a menagerie of seemingly lesser creatures: "ant / fly / moth / bee / butterfly / sparrow / squirrel / me."Of especial appeal to small children already drawn to Earth's tinier residents, this celebration of urban wildlife subtly informs as it delights. (additional facts, further reading) (Picture book/poetry. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews