What a week this has been! So many things going on this month -- youngest sons multitude of Christmas concerts, preparations for our trip to NYC, Christmas-y outings with friends and shopping and last-minute gifts and writing, always always writing.
Today I am taking a break from all that for just a minute to share with you a lovely book ON THE WING by David Elliott, illus. by Becca Stadlander. It's contains short vivid poems about birds! So, bird lovers will love it, and people who aren't bird lovers will BECOME bird lovers. :) I don't think poets will ever NOT be inspired by birds, and rightly so! I'd like to share three of these poems with you today:
The Hummingbird
by David Elliott
Backward!
Forward!
Here
then
there!
Always
in a
tizzy!
Got
mo
time
to
sit
or
sing!
Too
busy!
Busy!
Busy!
The Oriole and the Woodpecker
by David Elliott
Music lovers fast await
the first duet
of summer.
Oriole is vocalist.
Woodpecker is drummer.
(Isn't that perfect?! Of course I love the whole "duet" metaphor what with all the music in my life these days.)
The Macaw
by David Elliott
Who
spilled
the
paint?
(If that doesn't make you smile, you are in dire need of a day off... and more poetry. :)
I'm sitting here wondering which is my favorite bird... ever since SUMMER OF THE SWANS, I have loved swans. I fell in love with the African tanager a few years ago... and every time the cardinals nest outside my kitchen window, they are totally my favorites. :) What about you? Any birds that hold particular appeal for you??
I just checked this out from the library, so now it's read for the weekend, Irene. I knew it would be beautiful like his other books. These are great, the hummingbird flitting across the page, wow! My favorite bird-so many-but when I saw the blue-footed booby on an adventure in the Sea of Cortez, I fell in love!
ReplyDeleteI so enjoy David Elliott's books and observations! Thanks for the peek inside this one.
ReplyDeleteFavorite bird? Impossible. But the bird most like a haiku for me is the indigo bunting - just magical. I'm having to learn some new birds since moving; need to brush up on these coastal creatures!
Love all the poems you shared. Must see this book! We have several woodpecker drummers in our back yard but no orioles. Perhaps I should sing for them :)?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Irene - I will definitely get this book from the library and take a look. Wish I could say I've seen a "blue-footed booby" as Linda did! But I have seen flocks of trumpeter swans in the Skagit Valley in Western Washington - they spend the winter here, down from the Yukon and Alaska. They are magical. My favorite bird though has to be the tiny red-breasted nuthatches that eat from our feeder all year.
ReplyDeleteThis looks wonderful! My favorite bird is the Hispaniolan Lizard Cuckoo that we see in our yard.
ReplyDeleteIrene, I almost picked this book up at NCTE and now I wished I had. I do enjoy feeding the birds in my backyard and so it's going to be a must have.
ReplyDeleteLove that 2 page spread, a crisp match of words and illustrations. So clean and inviting!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely will be getting this one for the library! I guess I have a fondness for the plain old house sparrow. Sometimes they gather in the wisteria vine, seemingly by the hundreds, and twit-twit-twit away. I also love to see them enjoy a puddle bath, or lacking that, a good dust bath!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite birds are the hawks. But I also love the rarer glimpse of hummingbirds, too!
ReplyDeleteOh, this looks like a lovely book - beautiful; poems an illustrations. Thanks for sharing, Irene.
ReplyDeleteI have been dying to read this! Thanks for sharing tidbits while I'm waiting to read it!
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