Dancing Moons - Hardcover

Wood, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385321694 ISBN 13: 9780385321693

Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 1995

Synopsis

The world is hard up for the simple things that abound in nature. We long for what nature can reveal, the essential truths that connect us to the core of life itself. Following the spiritual philosophy of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, who have been her teachers for over thirty years, Nancy Wood shares her awareness and appreciation of the complex, magical world around us. These poems and meditations, following the Twelve Great Paths of the Moon, reveal old, enduring truths that may help each of us on our journey.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up?Wood has organized her cycle of poems in homage to Native American philosophy around the Twelve Great Paths of the Moon of the Pueblo Indians. Each section is preceded by a meditation (January's Man Moon begins?"January's great path of the moon is solitude. Each day is part of an infinite puzzle, interlocked with all the preceding days and the ones that follow."). Within the section, each poem is accompanied by a stunning painting that is also inspired by Native American mythology. The book is visually gripping and gorgeous; its clean typeface and sharp white borders set off perfectly both paintings and text. Unfortunately, while Wood clearly has a deep devotion to and respect for Native American philosophy, as she so eloquently demonstrated in War Cry on a Prayer Feather (Doubleday, 1979; o.p.), her own words in this collection ring more of New Ageisms that seep into adult conversations than poetry. She writes in "Invitation to Life"?"I invite you to life/and you send regrets...I'll issue no more invitations/to you. The party's been/ cancelled, the guests won't arrive/in time to find me having/A dance all my own. You see,/I invited myself to my life/and finally accepted." This book, although written with noble intentions, should be declined.?Kathleen Whalin, Greenwich Country Day School, CT
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Woods' own poems accompany paintings by Frank Howell in this fine collection, based on Native American wisdom. It's difficult to assign an age level to this collection, but kids at the middle school level and many an adult will find it absorbing and varied. -- Midwest Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0385321694
• ISBN 13: 9780385321693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80