Silver Seeds - Softcover

Paolilli, Paul; Brewer, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142500100 ISBN 13: 9780142500101

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2003

Synopsis

Is the night sky filled with stars, or are they really silver seeds? When you see fall leaves floating down from trees, could they be little brown parachutes? Maybe the moon is really a melon and your shadow is a silent friend. The lyrical poems and luminous illustrations in this stellar collection will stretch readers' imaginations. Can you believe what you see?

Illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Francher.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Paolilli is a marriage, family, and child counselor in Long Berach, California.
Dan Brewer is a high school English teacher.  He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson have worked as a creative team for over 26 years, producing illustrations for annual reports, brochures, posters, movies, advertisements, book covers, and magazines. Together they have illustrated over 50 children’s books, including Dr. Seuss's My Many Colored Days, Garrison Keillor's Cat, You Better Come Home, and Jon Scieszka's The Frog Prince, Continued. Their 2000 release, I Walk At Night, was recognized as one of the New York Times's Best Illustrated Books. They are the recipients of a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators and have been recognized by Communication Arts, Print, andGraphis. Lou and Steve provided set and character development for Pixar’s Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. They live in Moraga, California. Visit their website at johnsonandfancher.com.

From Publishers Weekly:

Johnson and Fancher's (My Many Colored Days) progression of paintings captures an uncanny likeness to the shifting light during the course of a single day, inspired by a first-time-author team's evocative poems. The authors explore the great outdoors in a series of economical verses for which a word's letters begin each line of text. In one of the strongest poems, "Rain" becomes "Rap-tap-tapping/ At my window/ In drip-drop/ Notes." Because of the brevity of the poems, the success lies in the metaphor, and the authors come up with some perfect matches: "Stars" are "Silver seeds/ Tossed in the air/ And planted in the sky,/ Reaching out of the darkness/ Sprouting wonder," and the moon a "Marvelous melon, whole/ Or sliced,/ Offering sweet flavor to the/ Night." The chronology of the poems flows as smoothly as the passing of time: "Dawn" gives way to "Sun" then "Shadow"; "Clouds" is followed by "Fog" then "Rain." Johnson and Fancher's illustrations hew to a Shaker-like spareness. They often focus on one central image--a bright hummingbird hovering at a deep purple morning glory, a single turquoise butterfly fluttering through a field of sunlit poppies--and they link the poems by featuring a boy and girl, sometimes together, sometimes alone. In one particularly dramatic spread, "Fog," the children hold hands, enveloped by a swirl of gray. A dazzling example of how poetry can prompt readers to view ordinary experiences through fresh eyes. Ages 5-9.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0142500100
• ISBN 13: 9780142500101
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Johnson Steve, Fancher Lou