An earnest and emotional set of drawings and ecstatic writings.
A faith-based collection of drawings and writings that personalizes the grandeur of nature.
During repeated visits to natural settings in the American Southwest, Kirk writes, she “was overwhelmed by wonder upon wonder in the beauty of creation,” believing that amid the natural surroundings of Colorado was “where God found me.” This volume compiles her Christian observations. Each entry opens with a passage from Scripture followed by poems that effectively vibrate with her sense of the immortal and sacred. “Praise God at dew point wakening,” she writes in “Creation, Hymn of Praise.” “Praise God at tints of dawn, / Praise God at morn unfolding.” Some entries take the form of prose, as when she offers gratitude to God for “water—the pure and sweet life-giving flows, for springs and seeps that moisten thirsty ground, for rivers, streams, and all reserves icebound.” Later, the author expresses despair over signs of the presence of humankind within this bucolic realm, from deforestation to pollution of the air and water, which are viewed as a betrayal of humankind’s stewardship of nature: “See the destruction we have caused / Separated from designer, we shattered the design / Parted from our God of order, we live in disorder / Godless, we are loveless” (“Lament With Jeremiah”). Ultimately, however, this collection is full of joyful abandon for the natural world, infusing even seemingly simple scenes with rapturous detail, as when her children follow her husband “across slippery rocks, stopping to explore small pools haunted by hermit crabs and bejeweled by green anemones and purple sea urchins.” Kirk’s choice to intersperse her own drawings along with her writings and Scripture passages offers readers a warm invitation to gaze at images as well as reflect on the text.
An earnest and emotional set of drawings and ecstatic writings.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66674-290-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Resource Publications
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breathtakingly magical.
A powerful homage to the natural world, from England by way of Canada.
Combining poetic words (somewhat reminiscent of Mary Oliver’s poetry in their passion for the natural world) with truly stunning illustrations, this unusually beautiful book brings to readers the magic and wonder of nature. This is not a book about ecology or habitat; this is a book that encourages readers to revel in, and connect with, the natural world. Focusing on a particular subject, whether it be animal, insect, or plant, each poem (rendered in a variety of forms) delivers a “spell” that can be playful, poignant, or entreating. They are most effective when read aloud (as readers are encouraged to do in the introduction). Gorgeous illustrations accompany the words, both as stand-alone double-page spreads and as spot and full-page illustrations. Each remarkable image exhibits a perfect mastery of design, lively line, and watercolor technique while the sophisticated palette of warms and cools both soothes and surprises. This intense interweaving of words and pictures creates a sense of immersion and interaction—and a sense that the natural world is part of us. A glossary encourages readers to find each named species in the illustrations throughout the book––and to go one step further and bring the book outside, to find the actual subjects in nature. Very much in the spirit of the duo’s magisterial The Lost Words (2018), this companion is significantly smaller than its sprawling companion; at just 6.5 by 4.5 inches when closed, it will easily fit into a backpack or generously sized pocket. “Wonder is needed now more than ever,” Macfarlane writes in the introduction, and this book delivers it.
Breathtakingly magical. (Poetry. 6-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4870-0779-9
Page Count: 120
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2020
What curmudgeon would argue?
Once there was a parablist named Joshua and at times his fresh new parables were received with open minds by reviewers (Joshua in the Holy Land, 1992) as Joshua brought peace to the strife-torn Middle East. Yet in still later sheaves, as Joshua set about reforming sin-laden New York City, reviewers felt an encroaching blandness wash over them (Joshua and the City, 1995).
Clearly one cannot read all of Joshua’s parables at one sitting, particularly when one may not share Joshua’s views that God awaits all at journey’s end and will judge the righteous and the unrighteous and that heaven is a shining city to be sought under the guidance of the church while God counts (and recounts) votes for or against us with His mind as open as a left-wing liberal’s while perhaps weighing our interest in the social security of our offspring and the need for enforcing or cutting the death tax and measuring our decision to back or not back legal executions for capital offenses. Why not, a Republican might ask, embrace the wealthy just as warmly as we do the poor and spiritually disenfranchised? But Joshua’s latest parables fearlessly take on the hardhearted businessman, obsessed by the ever-rising value of his stocks, and in no way support Big Money. He takes on moviemakers focused on massacres. He dispenses wisdom about marriage in the parable in which Satan seduces the devoted wife, and in the parable of the ants shows how the peaceful and cooperative ant builds a healthy home life that husbands and wives should look to—though he fails to note the rages between rival ant colonies. To one synagogue he describes God as a Supreme Artist whose masterpiece includes the most far-flung matter in the Universe and whose Artistic Genius is not to be understood quickly, although He has a tender heart, witness our taste buds and eyes and ears for experiencing the ecstasy of His creation.
What curmudgeon would argue?Pub Date: March 20, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49511-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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