BE BLEST: A CELEBRATION OF SEASONS - Hardcover

Owens, Mary Beth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689805462 ISBN 13: 9780689805462

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1999

Synopsis

This bright picture book with brilliant illustration provides readers of all ages with poetic tales about the wonders and unique beauty of the four seasons.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Beth Owens is the author-illustrator of A Caribou Alphabet and Counting Cranes. In addition, she illustrated Prize in the Snow by Bill Easterling and two books by Ethel Pochocki, Rosebud and Red Flannel and A Penny for a Hundred. Her two passions are animals and music. She serves as a guide for the Audubon Society's winter walks and works with a children's choir near her hometown of Walpole, Maine. She also holds workshops for young students in which she combines art projects with nature study, and says, "Encounters with animals and the environment lead to a deeper connection with the world." While working on Be Blest Mary Beth traveled to Assisi to learn more about St. Francis, whose "Canticle of Brother Sun" inspired this book.

From Kirkus Reviews:

This book of seasonal prayers, inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi's ``Canticle of Brother Sun,'' and also indebted to Gaelic scholar Alexander Carmichel's work, can be summed up by a portion of the prayer for November: ``Contained in every/season's end:/the blessing to begin again.'' Springtime's ``Sing praise'' gives way to summer's ``Rejoice!'' and then to harvest time's ``Give Thanks'' before winter's ``Be Blest'' appears in the encircled prayer that faces each month's watercolor illustration. The realistic paintings reflect the annual cycle, becoming almost iconographic in the evidence in each of the gifts of the season. These are ``God's good gifts'' that in January, for example, are the seeds shaken from dead plants and weeds and the leaf buds on barren branches. The puzzle of the cycle of life springing from death moves on many levels; also appearing in January are predator (fox) and prey (deer). The simple yet sturdy spirituality informing this book will assure its place in both individual and institutional collections that have room for religious titles. (Picture book. 6-8) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0689805462
• ISBN 13: 9780689805462
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Owens Mary Beth