When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons

by Julie Fogliano, Julie Morstad (Illustrator)

Overview

december 29

and i woke to a morning

that was quiet and white

the first snow

(just like magic) came on tip toes

overnight

Flowers blooming in sheets of snow make way for happy frogs dancing in the rain. Summer swims move over for autumn sweaters until the snow comes back again. In Julie Fogliano's skilled hand and illustrated by Julie Morstad's charming pictures, the seasons come to life in this gorgeous and comprehensive book of poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596438521
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 10 Years

About the Author

Julie Fogliano is the New York Times bestselling author of And Then It’s Spring and If You Want to See a Whale as well as the poetry collection, When Green Becomes Tomatoes. Recipient of the 2013 the Ezra Jack Keats award, her books have been translated into more than ten languages. Julie lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and three children. When she is not folding laundry or wondering what to make for dinner, she is staring out the window waiting for a book idea to fly by.

Julie Morstad is an award-winning illustrator and artist living in Vancouver with her husband and three kids. She received her BFA at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2004 and is a sessional faculty member at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Editorial Reviews

Adults may hear echoes of poets including William Carlos Williams…But [Fogliano's] created a dreamy, playful voice all her own. Fogliano's gentle poems pair well with Morstad's soft watercolor illustrations, which combine precise images, impossibly delicate brushstrokes and true, bright colors against a lot of peaceful white space. She gives visual life to the poems with a multicultural cast of adorable, exquisitely dressed children.

The New York Times Book Review - Maria Russo

★ 12/21/2015
In a contemplative tour of the year, Fogliano and Morstad sensitively yet strongly evoke seasonal experiences like standing at the ocean’s edge, anticipating sweater weather, and uncovering acres of mud beneath melting snow. The poems—roughly a dozen per season, and all given dates—range from just a few lines (“just like a tiny, blue hello/ a crocus blooming/ in the snow” for March 22) to longer reflections: the July 10 poem that lends the book its title (“when green becomes tomatoes/ there will be sky/ and sun/ and possibly a cloud or two,” it begins) reads like it could have been a standalone companion to Fogliano’s If You Want to See a Whale. Working in gouache and pencil, Morstad (Swan) creates an appealing, multiracial cast of children in scarves and swimsuits, pajamas and parkas, while helping highlight the way that small things—a sprouting plant, a falling leaf—can herald big changes. Ages 6–10. Illustrator’s agent: Emily Van Beek, Folio Literary Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Complementing the poems are Morstad’s gouache and pencil crayon illustrations that range from effectively simple (a firefly glowing in the dark) to tantalizingly detailed (spot the inchworm or the ladybug in the shrubs). A multiracial cast of children relishing the delights of the seasons adds to this title’s appeal. —Booklist, starred review

"Spreads filled with gentle, watercolor depictions of children experiencing seasonal activities include some surprising details that demand closer perusal and wonderfully complement and extend the text. "—School Library Journal, starred

"This combination of poetry and art in praise of the familiar, natural world is sweetly, successfully dazzling."—Kirkus Reviews, starred

"Working in gouache and pencil, Morstad (Swan) creates an appealing, multiracial cast of children in scarves and swimsuits, pajamas and parkas, while helping highlight the way that small things—a sprouting plant, a falling leaf—can herald big changes."— Publisher's Weekly, starred

From the Publisher

12/01/2016
K-Gr 3—This evocative celebration of the four seasons through verse is an essential addition to poetry collections. Fogliano's text marries natural observations with human emotion to create a collection that is quiet but full of powerful feeling. Readers could easily incorporate the journal-like style to chronicle their burgeoning relationship with nature and time. Morstad's watercolor illustrations invoke the changing seasons with gentleness and beauty and invite closer inspection—a perfect complement to the well-crafted poems.

School Library Journal

★ 2016-01-09
Forty-eight short poems follow the four seasons, beginning and concluding on March 20, a bird singing, "each tweet poking / a tiny hole / through the edge of winter," as spring comes round again.Fogliano's intimate, graceful verse and Morstad's precise, bright illustrations evoke the ways that weather, water, sky, and growing things change throughout the year. Fogliano catalogs both dramatic and quotidian pleasures and acknowledges the boredom that comes with too much mud, rain, or winter. Each poem is dated, as in a journal; every word, including the pronoun "I," is lowercase; commas, parentheses, and occasional sets of quotation marks are the only punctuation. These quietly conversational poems include moments of lively energy—wind on a hilltop or the jubilant dizziness of a summer meadow. Morstad's exquisite gouache-and-pencil-crayon art is well-matched to the delicacy of the poetry. A lovely young girl with straight black hair and brown skin appears alone or with friends throughout; readers may identify her as the voice in many of the poems. Bright flowers lean on slender stalks; in a double-page spread that evokes Time of Wonder, stars wink in the vastness of a late-summer sky. The tiniest points of color draw the eye so that even mud and snow are hardly dreary. This combination of poetry and art in praise of the familiar, natural world is sweetly, successfully dazzling. (Picture book/poetry. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews