Dream. Believe. Act.

The other morning it was too icy and too cold to walk our normal route. When my canine companion and I roamed around the backyard, two chickadees swooped into a bush right next to us.  For several moments their cheerful chatter banished the bitter winter chills and wind.

Their presence brought back memories of other encounters with fellow chickadees, one brave enough to land on the tip of a cross country ski pole.  There are also those magical marvelous minutes too near a bull elk.  His haunting bugle echoing over me alone in the deep snow of Pigeon River State Forest forty years ago.  Some things stay with you forever.

These unplanned meetings are a reminder of our stewardship toward this planet we share with a myriad of living creatures.  So many wild beings are in need of our assistance and protection.  They are not alone, though, as Sanctuary: A Home for Rescued Farm Animals (Clarion Books, January 31, 2023) written and illustrated by Julia Denos shows us.  Her thoughtful text and heartwarming artwork are a precious ode to those animals who might be overlooked in our endeavors to make life for all those on our planet better.

It is dark, but I can see your light.

The voice of a child speaks to an animal, reassuring them about the security they seek.  They need to look no longer.  Another child tells a group of animals, they are to be given names rather than numbers.  Here they matter.

In this space, all are free to be themselves.  Animals can simply live for the sake of living.  They need not worry about supplying others with any form of food.  Their bodies are safe from harm.  They and their young can grow to oink, moo, and cluck to their hearts' content.

In this place, humans will heal, not hurt.  In this place animals can sleep without worry.  In this place, dreams do come true.

Sometimes, adults cannot believe children see things as they are, but they do.  They do see things as they are and they open their hearts and minds.  Nothing is more honest, valuable, or formidable than children who know their hearts and minds.  Their words become actions.

Through the voices of five children, author Julia Denos offers hope, hope for the rescued animals, hope for the children who love those animals, and hope for healing in our world. Each of the children offers comfort and expected joy to the animals who arrive and live in the sanctuary.  The word here is used repeatedly as reinforcement and a promise.  Its use does precede a soliloquy by the final child. Here she shares the truth all the children believe.  It is an opportunity for readers to participate in the same truth.  Here is a passage.

Here is home.  Where you can be

who you were born to be, just like me.

Let's feel the earth, stretch our legs,

lift our hooves, and spread our wings!

The child featured on the right, front, of the matching dust jacket and book case, is nuzzling nose to nose with a new guest at the sanctuary.  The light between their heads signifies the connection between those giving love and those in need of love.  The field filled with dandelions (and their wishes), tiny forget-me-nots, and clover stretches across the front and the back. 

The girl's body crosses the spine and her blue jean-clad legs extend to the far left side on the back, left, of the jacket and case.  Near the girl's waist are two, fuzzy yellow baby chicks.  On a hill behind her graze a cow and calf and a sow and piglets.  At the top of the hill is a barn.  There are sparkles of light around the barn and a ray of light coming from the barn.  Julia Denos has pinpricks of light on the entire image.

On the opening and closing endpapers, the backgrounds and patterns on each are reversed.  Left becomes right and right becomes left.  On the one the background hues are rose and golden yellow washes.  On the other, shades of blue, and a bit of green and yellow color the canvas.  On each are different prints made by the animals' feet.  Amid the tiny dots of light are dandelion seeds, a dandelion and dandelion leaf, clover leaves, a four-leaf clover, feathers, a butterfly, a bee, and the stalk of another flower.  

On the dedication, verso and title pages, a single illustration shows readers the rolling hills, flowers, birds and the barn of the sanctuary.  A beautiful blue sky fills most of the two pages.  These pictures rendered in

graphite, watercolor, acrylic, and digital paint

are double-page visuals, single-page illustrations or two images on a single page.

Most of the single page images are loosely framed with liberal white space bordering that framing.  The animals are realistically portrayed as are the children.  It is the use of color, lines, and brush strokes which give them a softness, a welcome gentleness.  This invitation asks readers to pause, looking for delicate details like a honey bee resting on a clover blossom, a butterfly poised on the tip of a horn, a spider hanging from a web in the barn as animals curl against each other during a rainstorm or the heart-shaped earrings one of the girls is wearing.

One of my many favorite illustrations (besides the final, double-page picture) is the one for the above-quoted text.  It is a two-page visual.  On the left side, beneath a blue sky, one of the children dances with a pig near one of the barns.  In front of them is barnyard dirt stretching left to right.  In front of the dirt is meadow grass filled with clover.  Among the clover on the left are two bunnies, one brown and the other white with brown spots.  On the right side just above the meadow grass, a white, feathery turkey stands with wings outstretched, some feathers drifting down to the dirt.  Happiness and contentment radiate from this scene.

This book, Sanctuary: A Home for Rescued Farm Animals written and illustrated by Julia Denos, is an exquisite treasure.  It could be used in animal studies or discussions about the care of our planet and its inhabitants.  At the close of the book, Julia Denos writes a moving two-page letter 

Dear Caregiver,

This letter is about animals and children, specifically farm animals. It speaks about how human society has treated the farm animals.  At the close of the letter, she lists seven 

small ways you can make big changes 

before she signs 

I'll be dreaming with you.

Julie

At the bottom of the first page of the letter, in small print, Julia Denos asks readers to look for nine wild plants in her illustrations.  On the back jacket flap, it states that Julia Denos has always been a lover of animals.  In 2017, she became vegan.  She has a rescued cat and dog and likes to visit animal sanctuaries.  This book is certain to find a permanent place in readers' hearts, hearts championing for animals.  You will want to place a copy on your personal and professional bookshelves.

To discover more about Julia Denos and her other work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  Julia Denos has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  She is most active on Instagram.

Seeking Calm And Connections

Sunday morning, standing outside on the hill, clouds were at the beck and call of the wind.  Wispy smoky clouds, barely above the horizon, were moving to the west and larger fuller clouds, higher and above them, were moving to the east.  Birds were enjoying the benefits of a heavy earlier rainfall.  After an overcast day, as dusk settled crickets chirped their evening chorus.  Large wild rabbits, fur darkening, froze like statues, nearly blending in the tall weeds dying as autumn approaches.

Two recently released books ask readers to enjoy each and every moment pausing to consider our place in an infinite whole.  Here and Now (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 3, 2019) written by Julia Denos with illustrations by E. B. Goodale (Windows Candlewick Press, October 10, 2017) explores finding the marvelous in minutes.  It asks us to think of what others are doing in those same minutes.

Right here,
right now,
you are reading this book.

Where exactly is this book you are reading?  You might be holding it.  Another person might be holding it.  You might be sitting, standing or snuggled into a cozy spot.  If you are seated, what is under you or what is above you?  Go all the way down and go all the way up.

You and everyone on this Earth are moving through the stars and among other planets, and orbiting the sun in a vast universe.  As you are reading this book, what else can you see?  (I see fog blanketing grass, leaves, tree branches and rolling hills.)

Somewhere, a telephone is ringing.

Extend your vision.  Extend your thinking.  There is more to be seen.  There is a future to be dreamed and lived.  There are creatures, wild and domestic, everywhere.  All kinds of things are growing and mending.  Can you name things growing?  (I have a big bruise and a bump that doesn't hurt as much.)  There is much we cannot see, but that doesn't mean it isn't expanding, improving and evolving to be its best.  Extraordinary.


There are many things we fail to think about, important things, but author Julia Denos reminds us of those items, circumstances and possibilities and invites us through her words to participate.  Beginning with this very book, she asks us to center ourselves and then reach out to other surroundings and people.  This is how she connects us to each other.  In her sentences, this is how we find the marvelous in the everyday items, circumstances and possibilities.  Here is a sentence.

A friend you haven't met yet is sitting down to dinner.


Rendered in

ink, watercolor, monoprinting, and digital collage

the artwork by E. B. Goodale begins on the open dust jacket stretching from left to right, back to front.  The golden grass and flowers start in the upper left-hand corner extending over the spine to make a gentle curve on the front.  The sky on the back is darker and scattered with stars unlike the front.  Beneath the grass on the back is a cross-section of what is underground.  We see a chipmunk's home, bones, rocks and a box marked secret.  This ground stops at the spine to become the pond on the front.  The use of white on the front of the jacket is brilliant.  The child seeing her reflection is also noticing how ripples spread like we do when we walk through life.  Everyone has an impact.

Lifting the dust jacket to the book case, we are shown a hand on the far left and a hand on the far right, holding the book.  The canvas is in hues of blue, brushed in parallel and even strokes like floorboards.  On the opening and closing endpapers the fabric from a quilt on an interior image is used to cover them both.  Characters from the illustrations are shown gathered beneath the text on the title page.  One of them is holding this book.  Ants and an airplane figure in the picture.

Each illustration, spanning two pages or a single page with text on an opposite page or woven into the picture, is a poetic presentation of the text.  Children from different racial backgrounds explore and appreciate what is offered to them.  Readers will see themselves in their activities and the expressions shown on their faces.  A sense of calm permeates with every page turn.  Easter eggs are there to be found by careful readers.

One of my many favorite illustrations spans two pages.  A walkers' bridge crosses over a small river from left to right.  A cityscape can be seen shadowed in the distance behind it.  A flock of birds flies over the bridge on the right.  The four characters featured are shown on the left; two are standing on the bridge.  The oldest is seated on the ground with the youngest near a tree.  A butterfly is landing on their dog's nose.  Another two people are relaxing on a blanket near the riverbank, their dog curled up and sleeping.  This element begins on the left, moves over the gutter and completes on the right.  Ducks, Canadian geese, squirrels, pigeons, rabbits, more butterflies, a bee, a mouse, ants and a spider web are depicted among the humans.


Peace, mindfulness and respect for each other and those things around us are guaranteed when reading Here and Now written by Julia Denos with illustrations by E. B. Goodall.  Julia Denos includes an author's note at the end.  One of her sentences reads:

Meditation is just another way of noticing, and noticing is a little bit like magic.

I highly recommend this title for your personal and professional collections.

To learn more about Julia Denos and E. B. Goodale and their other work, please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  Julia Denos has accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  E. B. Goodale has accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  Author, reviewer, and blogger, Julie Danielson hosts several illustrators including E. B. Goodale on her blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  You will enjoy the showcased illustrations.  In this video Julia Denos and E. B. Goodale speak about the process for creating this book.





Author Holly M. McGhee and illustrator Pascal Lemaitre who earlier collaborated in Come with me (G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, September 5, 2017) work together again.  Listen (Roaring Brook Press, September 3, 2019) welcomes us into the art of finding connections.  Each one of us is a vital link in the chain of life.




Listen

to the sound of your feet---
the sound of
all of us
and the sound of me.

We should next pause and take a peek at the sun which shines all around the world on all of us.  When the sun sets, stars sparkle all around the world above all of us.  Inhale the air which is necessary for all of us.  Savor your food.  When was the last time, you put your hands into the dirt, feeling its richness and how it gives life to many?

As we use our senses for these experiences, we are asked to do so through the filter of our hearts . . . our wonderful hearts.  Our hearts are powerful, performing feats for us.  They are our guardians and our storytellers.  They allow us to see what is alike between everything rather than focusing on the differences. They take us back to the beginning.


Repetition throughout the narrative by author Holly M. McGhee supplies a beckoning cadence.  We find ourselves immediately engaged in the sensory suggestions.  Each time we are prompted to focus on others and on all of us.  In a wonderful technique, we close the narrative with the same words but with an altered rhythm.  Here is a passage.

Dig

in the earth.
Your roots are mine,
my roots are yours,
the roots of all of us
are the same.

Yet you are you and I am me and we are we.
Us . . .


On the open and matching dust jacket and book case a small child quietly observes a tiny red bird among the flowers and overhanging branches. (This tiny red bird is shown throughout the book.)  The rising sun shines on them both.  To the left, on the back, on a canvas of white, the same child is leaning their head against the trunk of a tree, arms to either side of the smooth bark.  Their eyes are closed.  A washed, loose, blue circle frames most of this picture with the sun low in the sky.  Each scene is as if a collective breath is being held.

A washed spring green covers the opening and closing endpapers.  Loose, fine lines by artist Pascal Lemaitre present pastoral scenes during daylight and nighttime.  Changing background colors reflect these varitions.  We feel the gentle breeze blowing leaves as a deer leaps away.  We feel the warmth of the sun.  We see stars reflected in the water as we float on a pond.

Each image requests readers to stop.  We need to notice the tiny details.  Can you see the ants, snail and rabbit?  Do you see all the bees buzzing over the sunflowers?  (Are the sunflowers there because of the Van Gogh quote at the book's beginning?)  What word is fashioned from the tree roots underground?

One of my many favorite illustrations spans two pages. (They are all double-page pictures.)  It is night and purple shades are used to color everything starting with a lighter color at the top and darkening near the horizon and into the water.  Stars shine in the sky and in the water as reflections.  The landscape, flowers, grass and trees, the dock and boat are etched in black.  A lily pad and shadows of fish are shown.  The child is leaning over the edge of the boat looking in the water.  The tiny red bird is singing, perched on the tip of the bow of the boat.  The child and bird have a glow about them as does one of the stars.


Peace and admiration for yourself and all others envelops you when reading Listen written by Holly M. McGhee with illustrations by Pascal Lemaitre.  Each page turn is like walking into open arms and being embraced by all that is good.  Wonderful as a read aloud or read silently to yourself, this book is highly recommended for your personal and professional collections.

To discover more about Holly M. McGhee and Pascal Lemaitre and their other work, please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  Holly M. McGhee has accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  Pascal Lemaitre has accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  The publishers have created a special site for Listen which includes an activity kit and interior images.  John Schumacher, Scholastic's Ambassador of School Libraries, hosts the book trailer premiere on his blog, Watch. Connect. Read.  It includes a chat with both the author and the illustrator.  At Kathy Temean's site, Writing and Illustrating, Holly M. McGhee talks about this book, her career and her friendship with Pascal Lemaitre.

An Extraordinary Walk Through Ordinary

When a dog has chosen to make their home with you, it affords you marvelous opportunities.  You find yourself outside in the early hours of the morning and at the very late hours of night.  As you walk through your neighborhood at these times, when more people are inside rather than outside, sights otherwise concealed during daylight are revealed.

The windows of a home are much like the eyes of an individual, a way to see the everyday essence which makes it uniquely unlike any other space.   Windows (Candlewick Press, October 10, 2017) written by Julia Denos with illustrations by E. B. Goodale pays homage to the calm felt when strolling through a neighborhood as evening falls.  It's like walking through a library filled with stories.

At the end of the day, before the town goes to sleep, you can look out your window . . .

As the lights turn on inside the houses, they signal a familiar accepted pattern, like fireflies calling to other fireflies.  They convey a feeling of security.  Sometimes you will see other creatures, domestic and wild venturing out into the half-light turning into night.  Are they watching the lights in windows begin to glow, too?

The size of the windows, curtains open and curtains closed, are a reflection of the inhabitants.  You might be privy to conversations, parental affection and learning.  Some people may be sitting down to eat their supper.  Some people may be relaxing in their living rooms.

Not every house will have windows warm with light.  There is usually one residence completely dark.  No one lives there but you can pretend, letting your imagination create occupants.

Of all the windows you see as you wander along well-known paths, there is one which welcomes you with more warmth than the others.  You find comfort in the knowledge of who is inside.  You are home.


As one phrase connects to the next in this story it's like listening to melodic lines in a lullaby.  As soon as you read the first sentence written by Julia Denos you are aware of a certain peace of mind arriving, dictated by a particular sameness as darkness descends.  It's Julia's ability to take the ordinary, enhancing it to extraordinary, that gives this story its beauty.  She singles out specific moments, taking nothing for granted but exhibiting gratitude for all.  Here is another sentence.

You might pass a cat
or an early raccoon
taking a bath
in squares of yellow light.


As you look at the opened dust jacket, the multilayered, setting sun sky is in perfect harmony with the light glowing in the windows.  These windows are varnished on the street scene extending over the spine to the left edge, the back, of the jacket.  The tree branches are like black lace.  The darkened blue in varying shades of the buildings, sidewalk and street complement the natural and artifical light.  The spot of red on the boy's jacket and the white dog fur and white text of the title blend with the surrounding color but also announce the beginning of something wonderful.

On the book case from edge to edge is the multilayered, setting sun sky, singular in its beauty.  On the opening and closing endpapers it's as if we are standing on one of the rooftops looking across the landscape created by the other roofs.  The sun is low in the sky, barely above the treetops on the opening endpapers.  Men are working on one of the roofs.  There are a few lights on already.  A group of pigeons are flying in from the right.  On the closing endpapers night has fallen.  A full moon is in the sky.  The pigeons are roosting on one of the roofs.  Lights are glowing in all the buildings.

Rendered in ink, watercolor, letterpress, and digital collage by debut picture book illustrator E. B. Goodale all images except for those on four pages span from page edge to page edge across two pages.  All of the elements, the details, are intentional.  They tell stories; the Brazilian soccer ball in the boy's home, the heart-patterned blanket hanging on a clothes line, the raccoon snacking on an apple core, the air-conditioner running in a window, and the three bird cages seen in a single room.

As the boy walks the colors of the sky behind the buildings deepen indicating the passage of time.  E. B. Goodale shifts her perspective several times, bringing us closer to a particular scene before giving us a more expansive view again.  White space is used to great effect twice to emphasize the text and to ask us to pause.

One of my many favorite illustrations spans two pages.  On the left and on the right are single family homes with fenced-in yards.  Their designs are very different; one is more traditional with flower-filled window boxes.  The other is more contemporary with a circular window and a flat roof.  In the center of the picture the boy and his dog have stopped at a stone-paved area, marked by several low pillars with chains between them.  Two trees have been planted behind them like an entrance.  A dog park shows dogs running with their humans nearby.  Behind this is a silhouette of homes and then the red, orange and yellow sky.


It would be easy to imagine this title, Windows written by Julia Denos with illustrations by E. B. Goodale, as one read every night to lull gals and guys to sleep.  It is a brilliant and stunning look at the close of day amid a single neighborhood.  There is a timeless quality to the words and illustrations.  It gives readers the marvelous sense of everything is right with the world.  We need this book.

By following the links attached to the names of Julia Denos and E. B. White you can learn more about them and their work.  At both Penguin Random House and Candlewick Press you can view interior illustrations.  At Scholastic's Ambassador of School Libraries, John Schumacher's blog, Watch. Connect. Read., the cover is revealed.  You will enjoy the conversation there with both Julia and Emily.  Author, reviewer and blogger, Julie Danielson, highlights this title at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  It is one of the titles being discussed at Calling Caldecott.  Windows is also featured at School Library Journal, The Classroom Bookshelf.  Enjoy the videos.

Freedom To Be Wild

As an educator you are entirely focused with heart, soul and mind every single day of the school year.  You are also thinking at the same time of the next year; how you can do things better and what you will need to do to be better.  By the time your classroom is closed for the summer, you are up to your eyebrows in plans for the upcoming year.

While not a top priority but still necessary is gathering materials for all your hands-on projects.  Elementary students really enjoy using crayons.  A huge bag, growing bigger by the year, with well-loved stubs of color is a testament to this fact.  They love being the first one to open a new box of crayons with sharp points and the cardboard stiff from the lack of being used.  (I have to admit to feeling the same way.)

It's as if you are opening a door to a world full of possibilities.  As teachers and parents know, a blank surface is an invitation to a child with a box of crayons.  SWATCH: The Girl Who Loved Color (Balzar + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, March 15, 2016) written and illustrated by Julia Denos is about a girl who embraces the various hues she sees everywhere every single day.

In a place where colors ran wild, 
there lived a girl who was wilder still.

This wilder-than-colors-wild girl was called Swatch.  In this place she was known as a color tamer.  Although it could be said she was a mere pixie in size, she could mingle among colors making them do her bidding.

She learned to persevere in pursuit of a particular shade.  No nook or cranny was safe from her careful eye.  No color was too small or too large to escape her attention.

She would call colors to her and they willingly came.  Swatch and colors had great respect and affection for each other.  One day, for no special reason, she beckoned a color to her, placed it in a jar and asked it to remain.  It did.

To keep it company she began collecting a wide assortment of colors in containers.  Her room looked like a swirling rainbow.  She still had one final brilliant hue to gather to the group.

This radiant rambunctious color had other notions.  Swatch's senses were elevated to new glorious heights.  To be wild is to be free.  To be free is to be wild.  In this freedom and wildness wonders are wrought.


When you look about your world, inside and outside, the range of colors is determined by many factors which seem to fluctuate from moment to moment.  Julia Denos depicts this spontaneity in her opening sentence.  Her descriptions of Swatch, the colors (and their names) and their relationship make us feel as though the two are parts of a glorious whole.  When additional dialogue is introduced into the story their connection becomes more personal for us and for Swatch.  Our understanding grows along with her understanding.  Here is a sample passage.

Swatch had never thought of capturing a color until
the day she lured Just-Laid Blue straight from its
nest and into a jam jar.
"Stay," Swatch said,
and the color stayed.
How beautiful it looked behind glass!
"You could use a friend," she said to Blue.


The swirl of blue and pink on the back of the matching dust jacket and book case moves to cross the spine joined by a flurry of fluttering butterflies on the back and the front.  Like a magician with a wand Swatch has gathered colors to her to weave a spell of beauty.  Her skip of joy and happy expression announce her passion for her work.  On the opening and closing endpapers Julia Denos has painted a background of the blue on the first and the pink on the second. The verso and title pages are a spectacular wave of pink which Swatch is riding like a surfer.  Portions of the natural world appear beneath the mass of color; trees and flowers.

Rendered in watercolor, pen and ink and pencil with Adobe Photoshop the illustrations dance with high energy spanning two pages for most of them; some on single pages.  There is motion in each image.  A flawless flow connects the colors to Swatch and she to them.

The body postures on Swatch convey her lively soul.  Her hair, clothing, paint spattered face, body and clothing and facial features enrich our knowledge of who this color tamer truly is. Viewing her in various perspectives, close to us and farther away, complements the pacing.

One of my favorite of many images is the two pages showing her capturing Blue in the jar.  Blue leaves frame the entire picture.  In the lower left-hand corner is a large nest holding three eggs.  From that to the right are two branches of the tree.  On one branch, on her hands and knees, Swatch is holding the jar as blue swoops inside.  Above her on the other branch is her cat leaning over to touch the blue with a paw.  They both have a circle of blue around one of their eyes.


As you read the final text and illustration, whether it's the first time or the tenth, you feel your entire being uplifted like a symphony building and reaching a crescendo.  SWATCH: The Girl Who Loved Color written and illustrated by Julia Denos is a hoopla of happiness.  This has a party within its pages to commemorate the delight of discovery.

To learn more about Julia Denos and her other work please follow the links attached to her name to access her website and her blog.  You can read a sample from the book by going to the publisher's website. The Scholastic Ambassador for School Libraries, John Schumacher, has Julia Denos on his blog, Watch. Connect. Read., for a guest post and book trailer reveal.  Julia Denos chats with teacher librarian Matthew Winner at All The Wonders, Episode 256. Sturdy For Common Things highlights this title and includes face painting.

You can follow Julia Denos on Twitter at @JuliaDraw and on Instagram