Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year

by Frann Preston-Gannon (Illustrator), Fiona Waters (Editor)

Overview

Sing a Song of Seasons is a lavishly illustrated collection of 366 nature poems — one for every day of the year. Filled with familiar favorites and new discoveries written by a wide variety of poets, including William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, John Updike, Langston Hughes, N. M. Bodecker, Okamoto Kanoko, and many more, this is the perfect book for children (and grown-ups!) to share at the beginning or the end of the day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536202472
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/09/2018
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	431,678
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 10.70(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 9 Years

About the Author

Fiona Waters is renowned in the world of children's books for her passion, enthusiasm, and encyclopedic knowledge of children's literature. She has published more than eighty titles, and her work has been translated into many different languages all over the world. In 2006 she won the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award for her anthology "Why Does My Mum Always Iron a Crease in My Jeans?" Born and raised in Edinburgh, Fiona Waters now lives in the South of England with thousands of books and several very discerning cats.

Frann Preston-Gannon is the author and illustrator of several books for children. She was the first U.K. recipient of a Sendak Fellowship in 2011, and in 2014 her first picture book, The Journey Home, was long-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal. She is one-fifth of the design group Zombie Collective, which specializes in workshops and pop-up galleries. Frann Preston-Gannon lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/20/2018
In a wide-ranging volume, Waters presents 366 poems (by writers as varied as Christina Rossetti and Margaret Wise Brown) devoted to nature and the seasons. There’s a poem for every day of the year, beginning in January and ending in December. Two poems to be read in November are imbued with melancholy. Rachel Field writes: “Do skyscrapers ever grow tired/ Of holding themselves up high?/ Do they shiver on frosty nights/ With their tops against the sky?” Alongside it, a work by Eleanor Farjeon reads: “The night will never stay,/ The night will still go by,/ Though with a million stars/ You pin it to the sky.” Preston-Gannon offers a cohesive visual thread, with gentle mixed-media renderings of animals as well as urban and pastoral scenes. Readers are likely to discover greater nuances behind the accessible poems with each visit. All ages. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Paired throughout with Preston-Gannon's evocative, vibrantly textured digital illustrations, Waters' superbly curated poems offer something for everyone: majestic and inspiring as nature itself.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Preston-Gannon offers a cohesive visual thread, with gentle mixed-media renderings of animals as well as urban and pastoral scenes. Readers are likely to discover greater nuances behind the accessible poems with each visit.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Stunning mixed-media illustrations by Frann Preston-Gannon (The Journey Home) depict critters, environments and weather phenomena with lifelike textures and contrasts that pop. This anthology impresses with its captivating art, careful balance of melancholy and uplifting verses, and timeless themes of playing, observing, aging and enduring through the years.
—Shelf Awareness for Readers (starred review)

A less elegiac celebration of the countryside and its joys comes in a wonderful collection of poetry for children, ‘Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year’ (Nosy Crow, 336 pages, $40)…Children ages 4-12 who pass a year with this book will do so in the thoughtful company of all sorts of poets, from Langston Hughes and Christina Rossetti to Ogden Nash and that most prolific of versifiers, Anonymous.
—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

10/01/2018
Gr 3 Up—This beautiful anthology of nature poems delivers just what it promises: a poem for each day of the year, organized by date, from January through December. The poems vary in length, format, and structure, and the volume lends itself well to casual browsing, independent and shared reading, read-alouds, and/or direct instruction. There is, however, a preponderance of white male poets; writers of color are woefully underrepresented. Further, the majority of contributors are either British or American, and many are known for their 19th- and early 20th-century work. While the entries are evocative and rich with figurative language, the mixed media illustrations really steal the show. The artwork charmingly complements the selected poems, and is sure to capture the attention of young readers. Physically, the book is quite heavy, and might be a bit unwieldy for kids to carry or fit in their backpacks. The collection also includes indices of poets, poems, and first lines. VERDICT Libraries seeking an inclusive sampling of contemporary poets will be better served elsewhere.–Lauren Strohecker, McKinley Elementary School, Elkins Park, PA

School Library Journal

★ 2018-08-14

A year's worth of nature poems and illustrations for all ages in a massive collaboration between two Brits.

Measuring approximately 10 by 11 inches high and over 1 inch thick, Waters' collected 366 lyric selections hail from more than 90 poets recognized as pillars of the Western canon—Shakespeare, Dickinson, Wordsworth, Blake, Cummings—as well as a handful of poets from other cultures as well as modern children's stalwarts. While the age-old celebration of seasons and passage of time must be among the most common ways nature anthologies are organized, what sets this collection apart is how the differing perspectives work together. Waters makes sure, whether nature's many creatures or states of being happen to be personified or objectified, that the unifying themes of environmental conservation and respect for creatures great and small ("Hurt no living thing," advises Christina Rossetti) come clearly across. This isn't to say the volume doesn't offer numerous examples of light verse, such as Tony Mitton's salute to a plum—"Don't feel beaten. / You were made / to be eaten"—or selections from fun masters Ogden Nash and JonArno Lawson. Alongside these playful stanzas are hundreds of reflective poems, showcasing natural wonders often with mere syllables, as in "White Sound" by Julie O'Callaghan: "When rain / whispers / it is snow."

Paired throughout with Preston-Gannon's evocative, vibrantly textured digital illustrations, Waters' superbly curated poems offer something for everyone: majestic and inspiring as nature itself. (Poetry. 5-adult)

Kirkus Reviews