Poetry PICTURE BOOK - Sweet Dreamers by Isabelle Simler

Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Illustrated by the author

Published originally in France in 2017
America, 2019 by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

HC $19.00

72 (thick) pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.26 - 135 ratings

My rating:  5 - for the artwork alone, but the translated poems are great, too
Endpapers:  Moon over mountains and water, two different views
ARTWORK:  Digital!  Scratched picture.  Incredible.

See Betsy Bird's outstanding review, description, and discussion of the digital art here.

My comments:Wow.  Just wow.

Goodreads:  A gorgeous bedtime book from an award-winning creator
          From the celebrated creator of Plume and The Blue Hour comes another enchanting animal book. Countless cozy animals are settling in for the night, but they all sleep in different ways. A bat dreams upside down, a hedgehog snuggles into a pile of leaves, and a humpback whale spins in its sleep like a ballerina.
          With its poetic language and lush illustrations, Sweet Dreamers will dazzle young readers as they drift off to sleep themselves.

    Slung like a hammock,

        the sloth dreams

  of spring-loaded sprinters,

      of rockets blasting off,

of pump-action spinning tops,.

  When the stopwatch starts,

          our dreaming racer

              doesn't move

                  an inch.

   The horse dreams standing up,

           in the middle of the herd.

       She never loses her footing,

    although her thoughts break free.

          Puffing up her feathers

              in a quilted hollow,

  the grouse dreams under the snow.

         She spends the night in secret

       beneath that great white sheet.

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow - Joyce Sidman

Poetry
Illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin, 2006
$16.00
40 pgs.
For: Middle Grades
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: INCREDIBLE scratchboard meadow closeup

Wow wow wow wow wow, this eye-popping art blows me away. It's scratchboard, and it's really something. The cover just doesn't do it justice.

Two page spreads with two poems are followed by two pages that describe what's going on in the previous pages. Dew and grasshopper, Rabbit and fox, Spittlebug and Xylem & Phloem (I've seen all the bubbles on a weed-type plant, this tells you about it!), Milkweed and butterflies, Snake and toad, Goldfinch and hawk, Deer and trees......coordinated pairings with beautiful poetry, lovely descriptions, and artwork that is spectacular.

In the Almost Light

In the dark,
in the night,
in the almost-light,
in the leaf-crisp air just before sunlight,
sprouts a secret, silent, sparkling sight:
berries grown on the vines of night.

On the grass,
on the buds,
on the bark of trees,
on the small clear wings of the bumblebees,
on the spiderwebs (and the spiders’ knees),
come the jewels of the dawn
in the cool night’s breeze

And the sun
when it comes
through the purple haze
touches each clear gem with its sidelong gaze,
fingers each clear drop with its lazy rays,
gathers each one back for the summer days.

What is it?