Review #8: Red Sings From Treetops: A Year in Color

Bibliography

Sidman, Joyce.  2009.  RED SINGS FROM TREETOPS:  A YEAR IN COLORS.  Ill. by Pamela Zagarenski.  Boston, MA:  Houghton Mifflin.  ISBN 9780547014944

Plot Summary

This book gives a tour of the four seasons, beginning with spring.  Each chapter-like division of 7-8 pages illustrates and describes the colors one sees at that time of year.  Colors are shown playing different roles according to season—green dominates spring and summer and fades in fall and winter; white is associated with storms in spring, ice cubes in summer, the autumn moon, and the snows of winter. 

Analysis

The unrhymed free-verse text seeks to evoke the sights, sounds, and tactile sensations of the seasons through descriptions of color.  The colors are treated as active agents.  White lightning in spring storms makes sounds.  Yellow, in the form of the summer sun, melts things, but also has a flavor in the form of buttered popcorn; in the fall it “grows wheels and lumbers down the block” in the form of a school bus. 

The mixed media illustrations show fanciful images of characters personifying the colors moving through semi-realistic seasonal landscapes.  Words and illustrations were clearly planned to work together here, with each verse depending upon the accompanying visual to help the reader to understand it.  For example, the line “Red:  crisp, juicy crunch!” appears beneath a tree laden with red apples in the fall.  Each color’s name is printed in that color.

Though the style of the art may not be to every reader’s taste, the images and text together do a wonderful job of evoking the experience of each season and the sheer delight that comes from slowing down long enough to pay attention to the environment around us.  While the text includes words such as “cerulean” and “lustrous” that younger readers may find unfamiliar, this should not deter offering the book to independent readers, or from reading it aloud.

Review Excerpts

“The changing seasons have been the subject of many a picture book, but this one has a particularly unique take on the topic.”  Booklist

“Children will find many small stories waiting to be told within the detailed paintings and enjoy looking at them over and over.”  School Library Journal

Connections

Create a list of evocative words like those in the poem.  Ask the children to close their eyes and listen to these words.  Ask them what the words make them think about or feel.

Other poems about color, nature, and the world around us:

O’Neill, Mary Le Duc.  HAILSTONES AND HALIBUT BONES.  ISBN 9780385244848

Stevenson, James.  CORN-FED.  ISBN 006000598x

Thomas, Patricia.  NATURE’S PAINTBOX.  ISBN 9780822568070