Calling on seventy-five years of memories and lessons learned, Emilie Griffin reflects on the beauty and struggle of aging. Hers is a deceptively simple spiritual path--motivated only by a desire to be close to the Lord. Ideal for both individuals and discussion groups.
Yellow and red, orange and brown—fall is full of color! This nonfiction picture book, written and illustrated by Mia Posada, beautifully explains why leaves change color in fall. It highlights both the eye-catching colors of the season and the science behind the colors. Back matter offers additional scientific details for curious readers as well as suggested further reading and links to hands-on activities. "A visually appealing and unusually informative picture book for curious kids."—starred, Booklist "[G]lorious art . . ."—starred, Kirkus Reviews
Shira Geffen's beautiful and poetic story follows a little girl, Alona, on her journey home through a windswept park. She rests under a tree and eats an apple and, with each bite, a leaf falls off the tree. One of the leaves is different from the others - it is an enchanted, heart-shaped leaf, and it drops onto Alona's head and clings to her braid. The magical leaf protects her from the lead and she arrives home completely dry. Her father is waiting for her at home. He plucks the leaf out of her braid and serves her a bowl of lentil soup. When Alona gazes into the bowl of soup she sees a tree reflected there. "If you want to drink your soup, give me back my leaf!" says the tree, and tells her that the leaf is its heart, a heart in the shape of a leaf. Alona stands at the window and blows on the leaf, knowing it will find its way back. "Thank you," says the tree, which is still reflected in the soup. Shira Geffen's delicate, vivid and moving fantasy is perfectly illustrated by Polonsky's intricate pictures, full of movement and drawn from many and varied angles. The delicate texture breaks out of each one of them. This is a touching and gentle story, for 4-8 year old readers, with remarkable beauty, gentleness and delicacy.
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
A collaboration between a master nature photographer and a botanist that celebrates the astonishing varieties of leaves. Topics include color, pattern, texture and shape, and included among the plants are coleus, kale, caladium and ferns.
No Green Berries or Leaves is a collection of autobiographical essays by Paul J. Stankard, recognized widely as one of the world's master glass artists. Stankard is particularly renowned and respected for his flameworked floral motifs expressed in crystal paperweights, rectangular columns, and orbs. Stankard was trained in scientific glassblowing and worked in industrial scientific glass during most of the 1960s. Challenged by an inner sense of creativity and the need to establish his creative independence, he started making paperweights in the early 1970s. Attracted to the emerging studio glass movement, recognized as a maker of fine paperweights, and driven by an intense and incessant pursuit of excellence, Stankard was -- by the 1980s -- recognized as a highly accomplished glass artist, a member of the pioneering generation of glass artists in America. As the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of his art matured, and as he continued to develop new techniques for expressing his art, he also assumed more prominent influence in the development of educational programs and institutions that celebrated and expanded art in glass. Throughout his life, Stankard also wrestled with, and learned how to succeed in spite of, a learning disability -- dyslexia. No Green Berries or Leaves presents the author's record of his life as a struggling, then highly successful, artist; reveals insights into the challenges he faced as a dyslexic and how he came to understand, then circumvent, his disability; and records his perspectives on the history of the studio glass movement in America as he witnessed and experienced it during the past fifty years. This book will be of value to readers interested in the life of a major American artist and the history of the glass art movement in America, as well as to those looking for an inspirational story of how one man faced, addressed, and outwitted a learning disability and climbed the steep road to success to become a master artist in glass.