In Every Season There Is . . .

If I had a dime, no, a penny, for every time my dad said actions speak louder than words, Forbes would have me on their billionaires list.  He was a doer of the highest order.  For him, every belief, emotion, and statement, and even those things unsaid, were backed by noticeable efforts. 

When I read In Every Life (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, February 07, 2023) written and illustrated by Marla Frazee for the first time, it was as if my dad was looking over my shoulder.  When I read it a second time, it was as if every illustration was a testament to something I had heard over and over and over until it became a part of me.  It is one thing to read or hear words, but when those words are made visible, their truth is revealed.  This is what Marla Frazee gives to readers with this book.

In every birth,

blessed is the wonder.

This is the first of seven declarative sentences.  Each sentence speaks to a different experience in human life.  Some are more readily seen than others like a smile.  Some happen for a few seconds like coming face to face with an animal in the wild, but are captured forever in our memories.

We read of goals brought to fruition.  We read of mourning eased with solace.  We read of the many forms of love and how deeply those loves can leave a mark on our lives.

Most of all, these words ask us to embrace our lives, enjoying all they bring to us.  They ask us to be grateful for the happiness and for the heartbreak.  These distinct words and what we find in each one makes us fully human.

On the verso, beneath the dedication, Marla Frazee addresses how this book began to form in her mind.  She was attending a church service and listening to

a call-and-response version of a Jewish baby-naming blessing.

This was in 1998.

Her text for this book begins with the same two words.  After the comma are the same three words for each sentence. In my mind, Marla Frazee has sought to redefine those seven words in the beginning of the blessing by reminding readers of an extraordinary or uncommon meaning embedded in each one.  

There have only been a few times in my life when I've been hiking in the forest, strolling down a beach, or sailing on the water and witnessed sunlight shooting rays through the trees or clouds.  It does not last, but seems to have a spirituality attached to it.  When you see this on the front of the open dust jacket, you realize a special moment is being depicted.  This moving glimpse of time featuring three generations is universal in its appeal.  In the colors of the leaves on the trees, Marla Frazee gives us hints of the passing of seasons.  The palette for the title text is just the beginning of the marvelous artwork we find in the interior of this title.  It is varnished and raised to the touch.

On the other side of the spine, on the back, is a small vignette surrounded by white space.  It is one of the images for the words moment and mystery.  It is of a child ready to blow out a single lighted candle on a piece of cake.  Is she thinking of a wish?

On the book case the front and back are covered in a cream canvas.  A wide band of a darker shade of the purple hue used in the title text covers the spine and an inch and a quarter on either side.  The title text on the book case is identical to the dust jacket.  It is varnished but not raised to the touch.

The turquoise blue in the title text covers the opening and closing endpapers.  The title text is enlarged for the title page.  Opposite the verso page is a swirl of pastel shades of the colors in the title text beginning from a central focal point. 

In a style which is uniquely her own, Marla Frazee has from eight to fourteen smaller images grouped on the two pages dedicated to each phrase.  These smaller visuals represent an array of interpretations of the two main words in each blessing.  Through her delicate use of color and intricate fine lines, she draws us into each of these illustrations.  They are a marvelous mix of generations and ethnic backgrounds.

Each of these seven blessings is followed by a dramatic double-page wordless picture.  These wordless scenes further reinforce the final word in each sentence.  All of them are striking and panoramic.  With the exception of the final one, the people and their companions are small in light of the majesty of their surroundings.

One of my many favorite smaller vignettes is of a young woman and a young man seated on a rustic wooden bench with small boulders under the bench.  They have stopped to sip a bottled drink.  They are looking directly into each other's eyes with their heads turned.  To me it's that instant when you know the other person loves you as much as you love them.  You wonder why it has happened at this exact second.

One of my many favorite wordless visuals is the vast seascape for the same blessing.  Spread before readers across these two pages are crests of waves rolling toward a sandy beach under a sky with storm clouds moving away.  Rays of sun are breaking through those clouds.  A few brave sailors are out in their boats in the distance.  Three dolphins are leaping from the water under the sunshine.  An elder and a smaller child, their footprints making a path in the sand, are watching the dolphins.  Seabirds crowd the beach and a few have taken flight.  These two illustrations, like all of them in this book, are completely sensory.

This book, In Every Life written and illustrated by Marla Frazee, is rich and rare.  Its eloquence needs to be savored often and shared widely.  It will certainly promote discussions about what each day holds for all of us.  It might be interesting to pair it with Life by Cynthia Rylant with illustrations by Brendan Wenzel or You Are A Beautiful Beginning by Nina Laden with illustrations by Kelsey Garrity-Riley.  (And for some reason, it prompted me to watch and listen to The New York Times, An Illustrated Talk With Maurice Sendak.)  I highly recommend this title for both your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Marla Frazee and her other work, please access her website by following the link attached to her name.  Marla Frazee has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  At the publisher's website, you can view interior images including the open dust jacket.  Marla Frazee talks with Roger Sutton at The Horn Book about this title.  Travis Jonker, host of this chat on The Yarn, School Library Journal, talks with Marla Frazee about this book.  Author Pat Zietlow Miller showcases this book at Picture Book Builders.

Out Of Darkness

In the still of early morning or late-night hours, darkness yields new vistas.  One of the most breathtaking of these, depending on the phase of the moon, is when we lift our eyes to the sky.  The expanse of stars in any season is breathtaking.  To witness this and to be a part of this is both humbling and wondrous.

It's almost incomprehensible to realize the ages of stars are measured in billions of years.  The Stuff of Stars (Candlewick Press, September 4, 2018) written by Marion Dane Bauer with illustrations by Ekua Holmes is a stunning depiction in lyrical language and mesmerizing images of life and its beginnings.  It is a journey and an awakening.

In the dark,
in the dark,
in the deep, deep dark,
a speck floated,
invisible as thought,
weighty as God.

There was nothing as we know it, absolutely nothing.  In this darkness there was only this speck.  It was waiting.

BANG!

In the tiniest and quickest moment in time, time began.  Everything started and moved outward from the speck.  There were now stars, more than can be measured but there were no planets.  If there were no planets, there was no Earth.  All the things we know were yet to be.

These stars burned long and hot.  This time and this heat made some of those stars burst releasing dust; stardust.  This dust gathered and formed planets; planets like Earth circling around a star, our Sun.  Fortunate Earth was the correct distance from its star to be neither too hot nor too cold but shifting from a tolerable hot and cold as it moved.

The stardust continued its role of gathering and forming those things on Earth of which we are familiar.  There were dinosaurs.  Generations of humans came and went until . . .there is another speck

invisible as dreams,
special as Love.

As the previous speck waited, so too, did this one.  It became YOU.


Regardless of where your beliefs are on the spectrum for the origin of life, the words of Marion Dane Bauer are deeply moving.  She conveys the enormity of the beginning of the universe and the formation of each element within it.  In her words there is a fragility but also great power.  As her phrases connect one to the other, she shows us how we are all tied to the past and to the future.  Here is another passage.

And throughout the cosmos
stars caught fire.
Trillions of stars, 
but still no planets
to attend those stars.
And if no planets,

then no oceans,

no mountains,

no hippopotami.


Extending from the edge on the left, across the spine and to the edge on the right of the opened dust jacket, the swirl of deep, rich shades of blue, purple and red are pulsing with life and brimming with stars.  The two seated figures are you and me.  They are everyone.  The perspective of this image is two-fold; the beings are elements in the universe but also observing it.  The title text is silver foil.  Words amid the upper portion on the back read:

The miracle of every child
is also the miracle of our planet:
each made from stardust.

On the book case a deep midnight blue covers both the left and the right.  Marbleized hues of purple curve and blend over the opening and closing endpapers.  The verso and title pages are a reverse, black text on purple and purple text on black leading us to the time before time.

Each double-and single-page is rendered with

hand-marbled paper and collage and assembled digitally.

On the larger visuals the text is placed in an area appearing to be designed specifically for it.  For other illustrations a column is created to the left or the right for the text.  Ekua Holmes uses a full color palette reflective of the text.  With the word 

BANG!

she has shades of golden yellow radiating from a center of blues and oranges looking like fire.  This moves to peach and orange and turquoise with black for the next illustration.  When the stars burst pinwheels spread from centers in yellow, orange and red with dots of yellow, orange and turquoise.  In the background we catch glimpses of the dust jacket colors.  Every image is vibrant and lively.

One of my many favorite illustrations is for text mentioning bluebirds, butterflies, snails and giraffes.  The hues used are vivid and lavish; black, shades of gray, red, and blue.  The placement of the butterflies and the bluebird cause them to be easily seen but I guarantee when you see the giraffe arching from right to left across the gutter, you will gasp.  It is then the snail comes into view, too.


This presentation, The Stuff of Stars written by Marion Dane Bauer with illustrations by Ekua Holmes, is remarkable.  It is a beautiful symphony of words and art.  Surely it will promote discussions and extensive thinking and research.  You will want to have a copy in your professional and personal collections.

To discover more about Marion Dane Bauer and Ekua Holmes please visit their respective websites by following the links attached to their names.  Marion Dane Bauer has many resources for this title including two Pinterest boards.  Ekua Holmes has an array of artwork at her site.  Both Marion and Ekua maintain accounts on Twitter.  You can find Ekua on Instagram.  At Penguin Random House and Candlewick Press you can view interior images.  Author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson speaks about this title and posts one of my favorite illustrations at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  The cover is revealed at A Fuse #8 Production by Elizabeth Bird, Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system.