Poetry Friday is hosted today by Teaching Authors.
My selection is "Ring of Earth" by Jane Yolen with illustrations by John Wallner.
Subtitled, A Child's Book of Seasons, Yolen offers a poem story for each of the seasons: Winter song of the Weasel, Song of the Spring Peeper, Dragonfly's Summer Song, and Autumn song of the Goose. She deftly weaves a naturalist's love of the subject with a powerful sense of time and place as in these few lines in the Dragonfly's voice --
"I am the sun's own darling.
My wings catch the flame.
Darning needle, Doctor, Hawk,
Dragon's Dragon is my name.
I was here at the world's first turning,
I will be here at the last.
What are the swift seasons to me
whose father's father's father knew the past?"
Yolen concludes her work with an Author's Note to provide additional information and context for the subjects of her poems. Wallner's elegantly detailed art in watercolor paints and colored pencils enrich the text.
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