Echoes for the Eye: Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature - Hardcover

Esbensen, Barbara Juster

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060243988 ISBN 13: 9780060243982

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

Synopsis

Poet Barbara Juster Esbensen and painter Helen K. Davie reveal the patterns that repeat endlessly in the natural world. The branches of a tree are echoed in jags of lightning, in the veins of a leaf, and the veins of your body. Readers will find connections between hurricanes and galaxies, glaciers and rivers, snowflakes and honeycombs. This book sings the harmony among math, science, language, and art which is at the heart of whole language curricula.

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children 1997 (NSTA/CBC)
1997 Teacher’s Choices (IRA)
1997 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)
1997 Elizabeth Burr Award (WI)

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Juster Esbensen was the author of many popular fiction and nonfiction picture books, including Baby Whales Drink Milk, another Lets-Read-and-Find-Out Science title.

Holly Keller has illustrated numerous picture books, such as Nola Bucks Morning in the Meadow, and the Lets-Read-and-Find-Out Science title Lets Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans. She lives in West Redding, CT.

Helen K. Davie's lovely watercolors have appeared in many children's books, including What Lives in a Shell? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfield, and Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft and Richard G. Van Gelder. She lives in Templeton, CA.

From Kirkus Reviews

This charming book, bearing the subtitle ``Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature,'' introduces many geometric patterns from the natural world and establishes an agreeable link between aesthetic enjoyment and natural history. Any pedagogical intent quickly succumbs to the tone of wonder and delight at patterns found throughout the universe in phenomena immense and small. In ``Branches,'' Esbensen (Dance With Me, 1995, etc.) juxtaposes the branches and roots of a tree with the veins of a leaf, then with the lightning in the sky and the veins in a hand. The final poem, ``Circles,'' begins with the ripples in a pool after a fish jumps and the rings in a tree trunk, then moves to a circle of musk oxen defending their group, a dappled fawn, the planets, hibernating bears (curled in sleep), and, finally, a bedtime scene of parent and child, an arm curved around a book, the moon shining, and a cat rolled up cozily at the foot of the bed. Soft watercolors accompany the free verse; the layout reflects a use of patterns as well. A welcome collaboration. (Picture book/poetry. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060243988
• ISBN 13: 9780060243982
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Davie Helen K.