Secure Hello, Earth!: Poems To Our Planet Penned By Joyce Sidman Accessible In Edition
love love love this book, Utilizing poetry to explore science is beautiful, Sometimes science, especially with little ones, gets bogged down in facts and trivia to appease our brains that we forget to appeal to our hearts as well.
The illustrations are also spectacular, Engaging poems that will appeal to a wide age range, The deceptively simple poems cover topics ranging from the Earth's size to plate tectonics, The information that could be considered "dry" is presented in an appealing way, making learning fun, For kids who want to learn more there is back matter that includes information broken up into topics each topic a poem, websites, and a book list.
RATING:STARS
I enjoyed the pretty illustration a lot in this book, The poems were cute and great for kids, I get it no one likes poetry that actually follows the rules of a form these days actually, kids still like itjust adults, But if you're going to break all the rules, at least do it intentionally, not out of pure conformity, Some of the vocabulary choices seemed designed to be surprising with no real reason and wistful letters to an anthropomorphic yet silent earth got a little too hippie for me even being something of a greenie myself.
Nice illustrations, but TBH, I feel like this is one where the topic is the subject of the acclaim rather than the literary execution, Not that the poems were bad, just not lifechanging, This review and many more can be found on my blog: sitelinkFeed Your Fiction Addiction
Hello, Earth! is a beautiful picture book homage to our planet.
There are poems that talk about the earth and its place in the solar system, its origins, its geological features and biomes, its creatures, humans' interactions with the planet, and more.
The poems are relatively simple and sweet, but the author utilizes poetic devices that add a sense of lyrical style, The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and contain so many fun little details it's almost like an Easter egg hunt to find them all! And at the end of the book is a nonfiction section that talks more indepth about the concepts from each of the poems, making this sweet book an ideal addition to a classroom library! Hello, Earth! Poems to Our Planet is quite the tribute to Earth.
Just as our Earth evolved around,billion years ago, this book has evolved from abook of poetry, published in Spain, using the same pictures by Spanish
artist, Miren Asiain Lora, Thispublication uses the same illustrations however, Joyce Sidman has written new poetry to accompany Miren Asiain Lora's drawings, I find it interesting that rather than decipher the Spanish poetry, Sidman created her own, This seems like a great form of literary recycling!
The poetry book honors and explores the Earth, pointing out the importance of caring for our planet.
The back of the book provides interesting facts and information about the Earth, There are resources for kids projects and organizations dedicated to caring for our Earth, Hello Earth is a gorgeously illustrated, beautifully and poetically written exploration of planet earth, This book for young people is a moving, and almost spiritual experience wrapped in the science, history, and wonder of a planet that provides everything we humans need to survive and thrive.
This is a must read for children and adults alike, Absolutely beautiful poetry. My friend and critique group buddy Joyce Sidman has a gorgeous new poetry picture book, which Im sharing here with you today! Its called Hello, Earth! Poems to Our Planet Eerdmans,, and its just wonderful.
Joyce wrote these poems to existing art by Miren Asiain Lora, and the images are whimsical and detailed and thoughtprovoking, In fact, knowing Joyce wrote the poems to go with the art, it might be interesting to use an image from the book as a writing prompt, before you read the accompanying poem.
All the poems are written from the point of view of kids talking to our planet, and Joyce has talked about how she wants kids to not only love the earth but to feel the earth loving them back.
I love that! Heres a poem from this lovely collection,
Long Memory
You were so different once:
a huge spinning cloud of gas,
a vast swirling sea of lave,
Finally your crust cooled
and settled into land
and water,
Even then, you kept changing,
Youve felt giant footsteps
trample your back,
ancient roots dig into your soil,
fantastical leaves and flowers
breathe your air,
Earth,
you must have a very long memory,
Which was your favorite part
Joyce Sidman, from Hello, Earth! All rights reserved
Look on YouTube for a video from Joyce, in which she shares the background of the book and also reads the first two poems from it.
And visit her site to find a link to a minibook you or your students can print out, create, and wonder aboutThis book is a treasure, and I think youll love it! Hello Earth! is a collection of poems to the earth, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Miren Asiain Lora.
This is a big bookeach panel is the size of an,”” standard size piece of paper, Lora makes good work of the space, filling it with beautiful paintings of the planet and beyond, Its actually my understanding that, unlike most traditional illustrated books, in this case the art came first, Lora provided the art and Sidman wrote a poem based on what she saw in the work, As such, the poetry fits the art perfectly, bringing depth to both types of artwork, Her words are both grounded and ethereal, engaging with the mysteriousness of this place we inhabit and how it is beyond us and yet is firm in the commitment to care for this mystery that God has created for us.
In Mysteries, Sidman hopes that there is always more to learn:
We hope you
Still have secret places,
Earth:
Hidden forest,
Mysterious plants
And creatures
Undiscovered
Unexplained.
Our Part reminds us of our need to care for the earth:
Earth,
We are part of you,
We are connected.
In taking care of you,
We take care of ourselves,
Something that I would caution readers is that while Eerdmans is a Christian publisher, Hello Earth! contains references to evolution, In one poem, Deep Currents, Sidman writes “Long ago we came from the sea, and it calls to us, ” In informational pages at the end, there is reference to the earth being,billion years old and that “humans evolved just in the last two hundred thousand years, ” While the fundamental element of the faith is simply that God created, theistic evolution is a fairly minority view and such an explicit reference is likely to limit the audience.
At very least, it is something to be aware of should you choose to read this book with your little ones,
As a whole, Hello Earth! is almost completely “secular”under the assumption that “secular” means “does not mention God, ” In truth, thats a pretty poor definition of the word, but I use to mean that theres nothing explicitly Christian about the book, Even though I would argue that extolling Gods creation is pretty Christian The point being that most Christian books about Gods creation have a focus onwellGod, And this book, from a Christian publisher, focuses on the earth God gave us and our ecological connection to it,
.