red sings from treetops: a year in colors written by joyce sideman and illustrated by pamela zagarenski

Sidman, Joyce. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors, Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009. ISBN: 9780547014944

Critical Analysis:
     Red Sings from Treetops, is a thematic collection of poetry encompassing the essence of each season. The author, Joyce Sidman, utilizes descriptive poetry in a manner that touches her audience’s sense of feeling, hearing, taste, and smell. Sidman utilizes each season in a way that divides this title into chapters. Within these season chapters, each individual poetic piece directly correlates with the appropriate season. She focuses this thematic compilation around the colors that resonate within each season. In the Spotlight Poem Excerpt, “Fall”, the author introduces the season with the colors green and brown. She personifies the color green as she describes how ‘green is tired,’‘sighs with relief, and ‘time for brown to take over.’ These lines also symbolize how during this time of the year green grass begins to turn brown. The author’s utilization of descriptive language also contributes to the vivid images that the illustrator, Pamela Zagarenski, incorporated within this collection.
     Zagarenski uses mixed media paintings on wood and computer illustration vibrant colors that collaborate with the context of each poem. Again, each poem focuses on the colors pertaining to each season, and the illustrator focuses her illustrations around these colors. In the poems that focus around purple, her illustration shows a variety of purple hues; in the poems that focus around the color red, her illustration is centered around red and its various shades. The collaboration between author and illustrator provides their audience with an array visual appeal.

Spotlight Poem Excerpt:

"Fall"

In FALL,
Green is tired,
dusty,
crisp around the edges.
Green sighs with relief:
I've ruled for so long.
Time for Brown to take over.

Connections:

• Ask children what colors are they reminded of during each season and why.
• Have children choose one color and create a poem (it could be free verse) about things that only relate to that color.