Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow: Poems by Joyce Sidman, Beth Krommes (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

Discover the hidden world of the meadow in this unique combination of poetry riddles and science wisdom. Beginning with the rising sun and ending with twilight, this book takes us on a tour through the fields, encouraging us to watch for a nest of rabbits, a foamy spittlebug, a leaping grasshopper, bright milkweed, a quick fox, and a cruising hawk.

Children's Literature

Teachers will delight in this companion to Sidman's award winning Song of the Water Boatman. It is a wonderful tool for combining the teaching of science, language, and art. This latest book of engaging poetry centers around a meadow. All of the poems are written in different styles, but each is a riddle asking the reader to identify something commonly seen in a meadow. Poems describe everything from dew to foxes to goldfinches and milkweed. Prose explanations stress the ecology and interaction of all the plants and creatures living in the meadow. The rich, detailed, and vibrantly colored illustrations done in scratchboard are a perfect accompaniment to the text. Children are sure to discover something new each time they examine the pictures. This is a book to turn to again and again for the beauty of the poetry, the splendid art, and the scientific knowledge. It is definitely endorsed as a first purchase.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 5-As in Song of the Water Boatman (Houghton, 2005), Sidman applies her flair with poetry to explore the interactions of creatures and plants in a particular environment. Here, she employs varied poetic forms with simple explanations for a pleasing introduction to meadow ecology. The poems are posed as riddles in facing pairs: "We are the ghosts/of those/who have come before/The gray ones/Leaping/Gone/ What are we?" The spread following each set answers the questions and describes briefly an aspect of each animal's physiology or behavior. Visual clues complement the poetic suggestions in striking scratchboard scenes that are saturated with color. The busy, patterned views provide readers with much to see in this meadow, including magnified views of the insect denizens. They also incorporate ample white space for the text, nicely highlighting the visual qualities of much of the poetry. Sidman concludes with a brief explanation of how meadows change over time and eventually become forests through the process of succession. This term is defined again in the glossary, which also includes one poetry form, the pantoum. This book is a handsome and versatile compendium, melding art, poetry, and natural history.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Combining striking illustrations, evocative poems that do double duty as riddles and lucid prose commentary, this venture into the natural world stands out for both its beauty and its unusual approach. Young naturalists will find plenty to pore over in Krommes's ground-level scenes, rendered in strong-lined color scratchboard and featuring accurately observed wildflowers, insects and other life against stylized backdrops. In paired poems, Sidman finds subtle relationships in each setting: between morning dew and warm sun; fox and rabbits; deer and patient trees; the internal plumbing of a plant and the spittlebug that taps it to create a protective barricade. "Beautiful bubbles, / bubbles of pearl, / all in a clustery, bubbly swirl / Bubbles I blow / from my own bubble-spout / (I'll never / I'll never / I'll never come out!)." Except for a visual clue, the subjects of each poem-pair are left for readers to guess at, until a page turn reveals concise, specific explanations and details. A top-drawer blend of art and science. (glossary) (Picture book/poetry/nonfiction. 8-10)

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