Silver Seeds: A Book of Nature Poems - Hardcover

Paul Paolilli lives in Long Beach, California.
Dan Brewer lives in Los Angeles, California.
Steve Johnson lives in Minneapolis, MN.

Johnson and Fancher's (My Many Colored Days) progression of paintings captures an uncanny likeness to the shifting light during the course of a single day, inspired by a first-time-author team's evocative poems. The authors explore the great outdoors in a series of economical verses for which a word's letters begin each line of text. In one of the strongest poems, "Rain" becomes "Rap-tap-tapping/ At my window/ In drip-drop/ Notes." Because of the brevity of the poems, the success lies in the metaphor, and the authors come up with some perfect matches: "Stars" are "Silver seeds/ Tossed in the air/ And planted in the sky,/ Reaching out of the darkness/ Sprouting wonder," and the moon a "Marvelous melon, whole/ Or sliced,/ Offering sweet flavor to the/ Night." The chronology of the poems flows as smoothly as the passing of time: "Dawn" gives way to "Sun" then "Shadow"; "Clouds" is followed by "Fog" then "Rain." Johnson and Fancher's illustrations hew to a Shaker-like spareness. They often focus on one central image--a bright hummingbird hovering at a deep purple morning glory, a single turquoise butterfly fluttering through a field of sunlit poppies--and they link the poems by featuring a boy and girl, sometimes together, sometimes alone. In one particularly dramatic spread, "Fog," the children hold hands, enveloped by a swirl of gray. A dazzling example of how poetry can prompt readers to view ordinary experiences through fresh eyes. Ages 5-9.

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