Today I Am a River
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Bright, lyrical poems and lovely illustrations encourage children to immerse themselves in the natural world.
Today I am sunlight!
Heart happy,
bright
as a yellow bird
flying to the top
of the sky,
shining and calling
HOORAY!
Goldlight,
gladlight,
today
I am sunlight!
Beautiful poetry and entrancing art inspire young readers to celebrate the natural world through movement, imagination, and play. As they pretend they are a skunk or a snake, sunlight or a stone, they will move their bodies and enjoy imaginative play.
From the creative team who brought you Breathe and Be: A Book of Mindfulness Poems comes a perfect book for quiet time or bedtime, as well to spark activities for story time or in the classroom. Today I Am a River empowers children to imagine the world from a multitude of perspectives other than their own and instills in them an appreciation and reverence for the natural world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Positing that "I can be anything/ everything," meditative first-person lines offer readers a chance to experience nature through the lens of varied subjects—from wind and rain to a snake and a spider. "Heart happy,/ bright/ as a yellow bird," describes a poem titled "Sunlight," while rain is "a skydiver" and a snake is "a paintbrush/ in a summer field." Throughout, Coombs deploys techniques including alliteration, rhyme, and more for an effect that's simultaneously contemplative and declarative. Laitinen's retro-style artwork shows a cast of children, depicted with varied skin tones, frolicking across the seasons and luxuriating in calm surroundings. (Even the wind, described as sometimes raging, produces only smile-inducing bluster.) It's an incantatory portrait of oneness with nature, and a tribute to mindful awareness. An end note suggests ways to use the book for embodied learning. Ages 4–8.
