Sending Out Hope

You are ready with all appropriate preparations completed.  Taking no chances you decide to wear your lucky jewelry, favorite underwear, shoes, socks, pants and sweater all day.   You have placed logic aside letting superstitions rule the day.  That night you wait for the first star and make a wish.  You put on your pajamas inside out and backward.  You slip a spoon under your pillow.  As you try to fall asleep you sincerely desire, for the eleventy-hundredth time, the skills of Dumbledore.

We attribute this routine to children alone but you might be surprised by the number of adults longing for the very same thing who would consider, or have done, one or more of these particular actions.  Before Morning (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 4, 2016) written by Joyce Sidman with illustrations by Beth Krommes is a plea.  It's a petition for one very special something.

In the deep woolen dark, ...

The day is done and a city and its people are sleeping.  As they dream, Mother Nature works her own kind of marvels with clouds and wind.  The swirling leaves are being replaced with others, no two alike.

As softly as milkweed pods releasing seeds, it falls.  It covers and coats and comforts.  To the touch it's like the fur on a lamb, duckling, kitten or puppy.

Quiet descends.  Everything stops.  It's morning.


Four eloquent lines in a single poem read like a prayer when the writer is Joyce Sidman.  Taken as a whole it flows as we wait for the word which rhymes at the end of each line.  In the first three phrases a gentle cadence is supplied with the use of commas, dividing each one into thirds.  We wait in anticipation for the final sentence, hoping.  In this one the use of other punctuation mirrors the requested results.  It's not written but there will be an audible sigh from readers.


Appealing to all our senses the matching dust jacket and book case create warmth where it is cold, quiet within noise, brightness over dullness, and new and clean in place of old and used.  On the front they tell us of a sleeping child nestled in coziness cuddled by their cat.  We might wonder about the globe, Amelia Earhart book and toy airplane on the floor.  To the left, on the back, is a scene from the city as horses draw carriages through a park with drivers and passengers bundled against the chilly night air as in the distance travelers await transportation.

On the opening endpapers more than two-thirds are covered in dark, gray clouds threatening a change in the weather.  They hang over the expanse of a large city and the surrounding tree-covered hillsides. On the closing endpapers the scene is similar but with a significant difference.   With a page turn at the beginning illustrator Beth Krommes expands the visual story with her signature scratchboard and watercolors images. On the left, the verso, pigeons are gathered on cobblestones.  On the right, the title page, the feet and legs of an adult and child are shown as they walk a dog.  The dedication page is a two-page picture of people, the adult, child and dog included, sitting, walking and leaving a park. Before them is a street filled with cars, a bicycle, a scooter and a bus with all their lights shining. People on the opposite side of the street stroll, window shopping.

Four single page visuals follow framed in white borders.  This is Krommes leading us into the interpretation of Sidman's words.  The child pauses in front of a bakery window, the trio climbs steps into an apartment building, a father has prepared dinner and a mother dressed as an airplane pilot sits on the bed of a child who does not want her to go.  For the words quoted above the scene is early in the morning, the father and daughter are asleep.  The cat, dog and pilot are awake; she is folding laundry on the kitchen table.

For those pages with Joyce Sidman's words we are given double-page illustrations.  On the wordless pages, seven in total, they are single images on one page.  The experience of viewing illustrations created using this artistic technique is astounding.  Krommes includes the tiniest details enhancing what is taking place in the moment inside the apartment, on the streets of the city, within the park, at the airport and over the entire area.  You are invited to pause at each picture.  This is in keeping with the peaceful pace of the poem.  You will notice the dog barking at squirrels in the park, a single snowflake falling as they enter the building, a pie cooling on the kitchen counter, the street sign indicating airport ahead, a book of poems in the living room and a key on the table as the pilot returns home to embrace the child.  

One of my favorite pictures (They're all my favorite pictures.) is looking inside the apartment windows in the evening as the pilot leaves for the airport.  On the left the child is in bed in a scene nearly identical to the front of the jacket and case.  To the right we peer into the living room.  The father has fallen asleep wearing his glasses with the newspaper draped across his body and a mug on the nearby table.  The dog is curled up on the couch.  Snowflakes are starting to fall more frequently outside the windows. Pigeon feet and a very slight portion of their lower bodies are shown above the left window.  This gives us an idea of perspective.


This collaborative team, poet and author Joyce Sidman and illustrator Beth Krommes, have given us another treasure in Before Morning.  As Joyce Sidman talks to us in her author's note, this is indeed about wishes and invocations. On the opposite page Krommes illustrates it appropriately with two kinds of angels.  It does not get better than this.  To date this title has received five starred reviews in School Library Journal, Booklist, The Horn Book, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

To learn more about author and poet Joyce Sidman and illustrator Beth Krommes and their other work please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  You might be interested in reading Five questions for Joyce Sidman at The Horn Book.  Jama Rattigan features Joyce Sidman in her hotTeas of Children's Poetry: Joyce Sidman at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  Beth Krommes is highlighted at artistsnetwork.  Beth Krommes is highlighted by author, reviewer, and blogger Julie Danielson at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  Process art is shared.

I wrote about their other work Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature here.

Read On Read On Read

Each person stores away their sensory perceptions, what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, in ways unique to them.  Several people could discover the same thing but remember it differently; noting the color, texture, shapes, the time of day, the temperature inside or outside, a specific noise, or a pungent odor, giving one more importance than the other.  To me what is most meaningful is that they noticed.

When we stop, take the time, to use our senses we realize stories can be found in the simplest everyday events; many beyond our control.  This attention given to heeding those stories not only helps us to grow in appreciation but connects us to each other.  The final title in the Mock Caldecott unit in which Katherine Sokolowski, an educator in Monticello, Illinois and I are collaborating is Blue on Blue (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, December 2014) written by debut author Dianne White and illustrated by Caldecott Medal winner (The House in the Night, 2009) Beth Krommes.

Cotton clouds.
Morning light.
Blue on blue,
White on white.

As the sun rises starting a new day, a blue sky is patterned with clouds.  A young family awakens.  Children play outside as the light brightens.

As a front moves in, the clouds change in size and color.  Cool air rides on rising wind gusts.  A gloomy darkness descends.  Booming and flashing announce the rainfall.  It's an endless cloudburst of noise and wet.

As quickly as it starts, the downpour shifts to drops.  The change is so gradual you barely notice when it stops, but it does. There are glorious puddles and mud around every corner.  Jump! Roll!

As the last rays of a setting sun warm the yard, barn and surrounding land a family gathers together to head back home.  It's a full moon night with a few sparkling stars for companions.  Colors change as sleep comes to all.


When I read the words of Dianne White as she describes a single day from sunrise to wild weather to calm to sunset and into the night, I can feel Mother Nature's heartbeat.  Intertwined with this rhythm are the lives of a young farming family living near the seashore.  Their responses to the sudden summer storm are in complete harmony.

The technique of joining similar or identical words with the preposition "on" creates a beat throughout the story.  Thoughts are tied together with rhyming words at the end of lines and the repetition of words from line to line.  Spare, explicit text brings readers intimately into each moment.  Here is another example.

Dripping dropping.  Never stopping. (page turn)
Never stopping.  Dripping dropping.


It's as if we are peering through wildflowers as the idyllic scene of a small farm home, perched on a hill, enveloped by the sea, unfolds before us upon opening the matching dust jacket and book case. At first look one word comes to mind---stunning.  On the right Beth Krommes introduces us to the mother, her older daughter, their two dogs and a cat.  We see laundry hanging on the line.  On the left is a perfect extension of every element from the front forming a larger picture; the exception is the dark clouds, falling rain and waves on the water.  That special cornflower blue of sky reflected off water is the color for the opening and closing endpapers.  As if cupped in a reader's hands a small visual appears beneath the title; flowers in a garden, the cat, a jump rope, a watering can, an umbrella, a ball in a puddle of water and a single red rain boot.

Crossing the gutter a nearly two-page spread begins the story on the verso and dedication pages with one of the puppies looking outside into the yard through the screen door at the cat.  Laundry in a basket along with a bucket of clothes pins are ready as are the jump rope, ball, red tricycle and rain gear.  All of the twenty-two double-page illustrations and the three single page pictures rendered in scratchboard and watercolor by Beth Krommes heighten the poetic words of Dianne White.  Krommes' portrayal, her interpretation of the words, is nothing short of marvelous.

The fine lines of her artistic style create exquisite images rich in depicting the natural world within which the family resides on their farm.  She brings readers breathtaking panoramas of sea, sky and land, warm snapshots of daily life between the parents and their children, and the importance of the animals wild and domesticated.  Perspectives change from picture to picture or even within the same visual.  We may be looking down upon the house, barn, yard and pond with the farmer plowing to the right as if we are one of the horses on the hill.  We may be inside the girl's bedroom as she and the pups hide beneath the covers as the thunder booms and the lightning flashes.  Outside her window her father is bringing the horses to the barn.  No element is missing.  Layer upon layer of detail is present.

It's impossible to single out a favorite illustration.  The final two pictures for the words

Black on gold... (page turn)
on silver night.

are breathtaking.  The first is inside the barn with the mare feeding from a bucket as the colt is curled around the sleeping black cat.  Hues of brown and gold are defined with black, gray and white supplying cozy comfort.  Farm tools, the farmer's hat and gear for the horse are hanging on or leaning against the walls. Stars and a full moon fill the window.  Our focus then changes outside to the sea filled with rolling waves, a whale emerging to the surface.  Islands are shown in the distance.  To the left a cliff rises; steps formed in the side.  On the top is the house and barn of the family's farm.  A few clouds and stars are placed on the black sky.


The lyrical words of Dianne White enhanced by the artwork of Beth Krommes in Blue on Blue gives readers a truly beautiful book.  I can guarantee at least two things will happen when this book is read either by an individual reader or shared with a group.  First and foremost the elegance read and seen on every page will astound them into silence.  Secondly everyone will look at the visuals over and over noticing new elements each time.  I would plan on getting more than one copy.  You might like to compare this book to TAP TAP BOOM BOOM written by Elizabeth Bluemle with illustrations by G. Brian Karas.

If you wish to discover more about Dianne White or Beth Krommes please visit their websites by following the links embedded in their names.  They were both interviewed about this title at The Nonfiction Nook late last month.  Here is a link to an extensive interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast hosted by author Julie Danielson from several years ago about the artwork of Beth Krommes. Update:  Here is a guest post Dianne White did about this book at Cynsations, a blog hosted by author Cynthia Leitich Smith. 

I think everyone should have this title on their personal and professional shelves.  That's why I am giving away a copy.  Good luck!

It's All Around Us

In a discussion with a class of fourth grade students last week during our Mock Caldecott election process, I pointed out that if we have eyes to see, shapes are to be found everywhere in the world around us.  We need to be more aware; excellence, as they say, is in the details and a shift in perspective.

The collaborative talents of Newbery Award winning author Joyce Sidman and Caldecott Award winning illustrator Beth Krommes, previously exhibited in Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, have delivered another title, Swirl by Swirl:  Spirals in Nature (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, October 4, 2011) that holds up for our pleasurable examination the mysteries and miracles of design in nature.

A spiral is a snuggling shape. 
It fits neatly
in small places.
Coiled tight,
warm and safe,
it waits...

Using expressive, deliberate free verse Sidman takes readers on a poetic walk beneath the ground, beneath the sea, across a forest floor, in fields of green, on jungle paths, peering in corners, over the ocean's expanse, through a garden's glory, in water and air, reaching to the stars and back again to where we began.

A spiral is a snuggling shape.

Whether a harvest mouse curled in repose, a chambered nautilus nestled on a sandy bed, fern fronds unfurling, a clinging sea horse tail, a grasping elephant trunk, a spider web woven among branches, cresting waves, a spinning tornado or a cluster of stars, each, large or small, repeats this shape with uncanny precision.  With thoughtful phrases meant to educate but also in admiration, Sidman describes all that spirals are.

What Sidman has alluded to in words, Beth Krommes elaborates on in illustrations.  Eloquent scratchboard in bold, vibrant colors greet readers on endpapers picturing spirals in every size from the varied vistas covered within the pages of the book. Throughout no detail is overlooked; dandelion fluff, millipede legs, and mouse whiskers are given intimate care.  Sweeping panoramic scenes defy the limitations of the page edges. 

Large type highlights Sidman's verse, small lettering labels spirals, tiny and immense, as Krommes's visuals warmly bid readers to enjoy what is there for them to see not only in this title but in their own backyards.  At the book's end each characteristic of a spiral, snuggling, growing, strong, reaching, clever, beautiful and moving, is further detailed.  To fully experience the extent of their writing and art visit the web sites of Sidman and Krommes by following the links attached to their names.  They have much to offer educators and those interested in children's books and art.

For Joyce Sidman, wordsmith extraordinaire, the less-is-more ideal has been polished to perfection in this title, Swirl by Swirl:  Spirals in Nature as Beth Krommes's striking scratchboard art depicts these patterns in a breathtaking array.  Beth Krommes states on her web site:

 My mission is to create artwork that is joyful in spirit, universal in nature, and accessible and affordable to others.

Well done, Beth Krommes, mission accomplished.