Seasons South and North

Book Review - The Night Life of Trees

 

Following on from the two previous posts about drawing and painting trees, I cannot recommend highly enough this exquisite, handmade book from Tara Books in India, The Night Life of Trees. Not a new book, it was published in 2006 and is a treasure of magic and inspiration for children and maybe for adults too.

It features art by three artists of the Gond tribe of central India. Seventeen pictures of trees are each linked with a myth or legend about them. The pages are black, with "each page of every book, screen printed on special handmade paper, making every copy an original print. The books are created from a commune of printers from local villages trained in this unique skill." The book is truly a work of art. Please, please go to the website, where you can see some of the inner pages of intricate drawings of creatures hidden and blended within trees.

Activities With "The Night Life of Trees"

Obviously, this book can be used in a number of  activities with children:

• Make up a story of your garden tree's night life
• Draw or paint the nightlife of the tree of your story
• Study other legends from other countries about trees
• Draw or paint the nightlife of one of those trees
• Learn more about the Gond tribe of India and more of their legends about other things
• Do paintings on black paper
• Stay up all night as a class and see what the real nightlife of a tree is

This is one of those heartbreakingly beautiful books that is a true treasure.

©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Just Plain Story Time

 

Years ago, teachers read to children every day. They did not read to teach them to read, nor to teach them grammar or history or anything else. They read to them for the sake of the story. I still read to groups of children who come to the library.

One of the best times of day for reading is just after lunch, when the children have been playing and are tired and fed. This is when they are at their sleepiest and most irascible. This is when story time is most valuable. Choose a book of many chapters, one a tiny bit beyond their years, and read for twenty minutes after lunch every day. Those who are exhausted will sleep, those who are alert will listen, those who are naughty, as always, will be asked to leave the room.

As the story unfolds, the children will become entranced. As they become accustomed to stories, they will want more. As they hear and remember the stories, their lives will be richer. 

Wonderful stories about nature include:

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Rikki Tikki Tavi, and other Jungle Book Stories by Rudyard Kipling

©2009 Anne Morddel

 Seasons South and North

"The Big Field" now in French and Portuguese

        

I am most pleased to be able to announce before the holidays that "The Big Field" is now available in French, with the title of "Le Grand Pré" and Portuguese, with the title of "O Grande Campo". I hope to be announcing a Spanish edition in the near future.

These can be purchased:

•  directly from my storefront at Lulu.com
•  from the Paypal store in the panel on the right
• by sending an e-mail to me at:  info (AT) morddeleditions.com

Free Teacher's Guide PDF with Your Purchase

For every purchase of a copy of  "Le Grand Pré" or "O Grande Campo" , and/or for every purchase of three or more copies of "The Big Field", I will send you by e-mail a free download of "A Teachers' Guide to The Big Field. "

"O Grande Campo " for schools and libraries in Brazil

I am seeking funding and cooperation with a charitable organisation to enable me to donate copies of "O Grande Campo" to all primary schools and children's libraries in Brazil. If anyone can advise or help in this, please contact me.

Thank you.

.

Le Grand Pré by Anne Morddel

ISBN 978 2 9531864 4 4

Price: €12 / £10 / $16.45

Size: 27.2 cm x 21.4 cm

.

O Grande Campo by Anne Morddel

ISBN 978 2 9531864 8 2

Price: €12 / £10 / $16.45

Size: 27.2 cm x 21.4 cm

.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

 
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POLLY BLUE

Today I have redesigned this blog in honour of the launch of my new book, Polly Blue. 

 

It tells the story of a small blue butterfly, innocent and free, who suffers a great trauma from the sky. Polly Blue is paralyzed by her fear, to the point that she can no longer fly, for the sky is too frightening. So, she walks, trudges, and lives a life of despair and fear. Eventually, she meets someone whose simple wisdom and hope free her from her terror.

 

Clearly, I wrote and illustrated this story after the ghastly events of the 11th of September, 2001. It came quickly, in a surge of compassion for the children of the world, among them my own,  who will be marked for all of their lives by the events of that day. I also wrote it for the Pixie, whose childhood was shattered not only by that day, but by the cruelty of a deranged man who nearly killed her for a lark. She spent years cowering under tables when a plane flew overhead or when the wind rattled the windows. Unable to spend a moment alone, she spent countless nights falling asleep in restaurants or in her father's arms at corporate events when her parents could not stay at home and took her with them. The hollow look of horror in that child's eyes is something I will never forget. She is a fine and strong and happy young woman now and I hope that part of what helped her to overcome her troubles is the words and pictures of Polly Blue.

Polly Blue is a hand made book. Each cover is cut from pure cotton, hand made card from India, which I then prepare, paint, and inscribe. The drawings were done in ink and watercolour. Some can be seen in the album in the column to the right. The book is hand bound, in the Japanese style, with green ribbon of pure silk. This is a first edition, limited to 250 copies, each numbered and signed on the last page.

           

Polly Blue will not be sold in shops. It will be available only through my blogs and website, either directly or via the little Paypal storefront in the panel to the right. Each book takes a bit of time to prepare, so if you would like to order one as a gift for the holidays, please do so soon.

Thank you.

Polly Blue by Anne Morddel

ISBN 978 2 9531864 9 9

Price:  €19.50

Size: 203 mm wide x 143 mm high  (about 8 inches wide x 5 and 1/2 inches high)

©2009 Anne Morddel

Book Review - Garden and Wood

                                                          


Buy Garden                                                                               Buy Wood

Evans has published a series of four books called Sparklers - Out and About, written by Katie Dicker. They are "designed for young children ready to find out more about the world around them. The books are designed to support and extend the early years curriculum." Sounds a bit dull, but the books are just the opposite.

We have two of the four: Garden and Wood, and they are charming. Illustrated with  high quality and colourful photographs to which speech bubbles, flowers for page numbers, and coloured strips for wording have been added. Some pages give facts, while others pose a question:

•  "How tall is your sunflower?", 
• "What time of year do frogs appear?"
• "How many pine cones can you collect?"
• "What different bark textures can you find?"  

Clearly, the emphasis here is on encouraging thinking and enquiry, and not just on the memorization of facts. Unusually for such books, every single one of the children actually looks happy (even though, looking at the photo credits, they seem to have been taken all over the world). The close-up shots of the animals will please young children who so enjoy photographs of real animals.

Both books commendably have a table of contents and an index. In spite of each book being only 24 pages long, it is very helpful to have these to be able to begin to teach children how to use them. 

These are excellent and attractive early non-fiction books.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

Competition Winners

The Prince's Rainforests Project for Schools has completed its Teacher Survey Competition. It won an overwhelming approval with 99% of the respondents saying they found the resources that are offered free on the site to be not only useful but inspirational. If you have not looked at the resources pages, be sure to do so, for more is being added every day.

I am very proud that my book was considered the appropriate prize to offer and  to be a "great complement" to the rainforests teaching resources.  Twenty-five of the teachers who responded to the survey will soon receive their prize copy of The Big Field : a Child's Year Under the Southern Cross and be able to start using it in the classroom to teach children about nature and the seasons as they occur in the Atlantic Rainforest.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

The drawing to the left is from the month of February in "The Big Field".

Book Review - Dragons Explain It All

The Trouble With Dragons

Debi Gliori is one of the illustrators and authors I most admire, for she seems to write her stories from the heart and to give great whimsy to her drawings. This bright book is true to her style, with its story one of concern to us all and its illustrations full of charm.

Many books warn of the problems of global warming, pollution, and overpopulation, and I have written often about how to help children to cope with this frightening knowledge. Ms. Gliori has chosen to tell the story not with ungrateful people who mindlessly destroy the environment that sustains them. She tells the story with dragons.

In rhyming couplets, she tells of dragons that overproduce, hatching from spotted eggs. It is orange and purple and pink dragons that cover the earth with roads and houses and leave trash in the rivers. She skips round the complicated explanation of the warming of the atmosphere by having it be caused by too many dragons breathing too much fire....and Santa is left in a pink pool where the North Pole once was.

Gradually, all of the colours are sucked out of the illustrations as all of the life is sucked out of the planet, and the dragons are a lonely species. Realizing their fate as the last animals leave, they call out for help. "OK, start by not chopping down trees," they are told, and so start the recommendations -- so simple, really -- that lead to the return of life, colour and health for all.

As a gentle and not frightening way for young children to learn about the subject, this book is among the best, and Bloomsbury is to be commended for publishing it. It will bring discussion, including the most difficult question of all : if we know what we are to do to end the terrible effects of pollution, and we are teaching our children to do it, why are their elders not doing as they recommend?

Indeed, why are we not?

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Book Review - Population Explosion

The Rabbit Problem 

This is a clever book, delightfully illustrated by a Greenaway medal winner. It is a very busy, cluttery book, with pop-up pages, inserted booklets, and its own inner graffiti, across 12 double page spreads of the months of the year.  In the hands of a small child, it will be destroyed in thirty minutes. 

It depicts, humourously, a scenario written by the medieval mathematician, Fibonacci, to illustrate a particular sequence of numbers. If you want a detailed explanation, I suggest the Wikipedia article, Fibonacci Number. In the scenario, Fibonacci began with a pair of rabbits and, with certain rules (a pair of rabbits an produce two more pairs, one per month, and then dies the following month) used the sequence to determine how many pairs would be alive months later.   It seems to us a most bizarre subject for a children's book, one that would truly appeal only to students of pure mathematics who are also parents. 

Why would I review a book that, though charming to look at, is extremely difficult to understand or even make sense of, as well as being too fragile for most children to handle without damaging?  Even more, why would I recommend it, which I most heartily do? Because it gives a very simple and easy to understand imagery of the population explosion.  

Normally, it is difficult for adults to explain this to children in a way that is not disturbing and even frightening. For some children, the explanations have been so dour as to make them feel guilty for having been born. This is neither psychologically healthy nor at all useful. "The Rabbit Problem" enables an adult to walk the child through the concept of exponential population growth in a simple and non-threatening way. Just look at the pictures and discuss the increasing problem without bothering with the mathematics. There is no story written, so you are free to interpret it as you wish. Depending upon the child's maturity, discussion of human population issues can come afterward.

Buy it:

The Rabbit Problem

© 2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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The Prince's Rainforests Project for Schools

                                        

We are very, very pleased and honoured to be working with The Prince's Rainforests Project for Schools in educating children about rainforests and how to preserve and restore them. The PRP has a wonderful site, full of ideas for activities and lessons, as well as, of course, competitions. There are excellent images of rainforest animals and audio clips of the sounds that they make. In a very positive way, every aspect of the site encourages conservation ideals. The PRP has also linked with eco-schools, an internationally admired programme to encourage green goals in schools. 

"The Big Field : a Child's Year Under the Southern Cross"

takes place in the Atlantic Rainforest, where August is cold and grey, and where January is hot, where spring comes in September and autumn in April. It is a charming story that, month by month, shows the native trees, flowers, birds, butterflies and insects as a child discovers them. The grandmother of the story -- with delicacy and understanding and through simple play and activities -- teaches a love of nature and a way to preserve it.

The book can serve "as a supporting resource for any of The Prince's Rainforests Project lesson ideas". 

Please do visit the The Prince's Rainforests Project for Schools  and sign up your school. Also, you may wish to visit the main site of the project and sign up as an individual. 

To purchase a copy of "The Big Field", please read the various options on the panel on the left of this page. Thank you.

What Teachers and Librarians Say about "The Big Field"

"The artwork looks fantastic...It's a lovely book."

                      A.W., school librarian, Yorkshire

"A wonderful resource."

    www.parentsintouch.co.uk.

"...charming. I can see it will work really well in my library classes with the Prep School children as they can enjoy the story and do research projects on all the interesting things in the book!"

    L.M., school librarian, Suffolk

"Great concept for a book...many useful applications for the classroom."

    Deb Troehler, special education teacher

"beautifully illustrated...a wonderful way of introducing....geography, multicultural studies, science and nature."  

                    www.homeschooling-ideas.com

"...our reception teachers...were really keen on your book and plan to use it in a variety of ways."   

                    M.P.,   school librarian, Taunton

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Book Review - The Bumper Book of Nature

The Bumper Book of Nature

Random House's blurb calls this hefty book a "gloriously designed treasure trove of nature activities, ideas and information to inspire the whole family to switch off the TV and computer and get outside, whether you live in the deepest inner city, by the sea or on a farm." The author, Stephen Moss, is a naturalist, writer and broadcaster, based at the BBC Natural History Unit, and this book had its beginning as an article about nature deficit disorder in The Guardian. (For a discussion of nature deficit disorder, see our posts entitled "Children and Nature", parts 1 and 2, May 2009.) While the article was raising the alarm about nature deficit disorder,  the book is an effort to provide a solution.

Over 250 pages long, it is no pocket guide. It has dozens of charming sketches of children at play and some lovely coloured drawings of animals and plants. It is divided into five sections of things to do: All Year Long, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. There is nothing new her, just the time-honoured activities of childhood: skipping stones, climbing trees, making daisy chains, observing birds and animals, making snowmen. What is new is that he gives detailed explanations of how to do these things.  

There are also some recipes, animal and plant identification guides, lots of weather lore, and suggestions of places to visit, all of them British. Thus, except for the student of childhood activities worldwide, the book will be of interest only to those based in Britain and Europe. 

The reader audience is of all ages. It is written in such a way that older and younger children can use it on their own, following the instructions; or parents can use it for inspiration when trying to get their children away from the screens. This does, however, give it patches that will not appeal to one reader or another. It is a book to flip through until you find just the right page to interest you, and you will. 

The Bumper Book of Nature is an investment, at £17.99, but it is so good, so attractive, so full of ideas and information, that it is well worth the price. For those in Europe, it may be the only nature book you need, one that will be well thumbed,  and much loved. 

To see more about it and to follow the author's blog, go to :

The Bumper Book of Nature Website

©2009 Anne Morddel

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