Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman
Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
2009

     April is Poetry month, so I'm happy start it with a beautiful poetry picture book. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors is full of lovely imagery and poetic language.  Through its pages, colors take on the seasons.  Red sings from treetops during Spring, Yellow slips goldfinches their spring jackets.  Blue grows new names in the summer: turquoise, azure, cerulean.   White dazzles day and turns night inside out in the summer.  Just beautiful!  This is a book to be read slowly, over and over, all at once, or just the verses for the season of the time.  Its illustrations are also gorgeous, dreamlike, and works of art on their own (they were awarded the Caldecott Honor).
     Some of Red Sing's vocabulary might seem advanced for younger kids, but I've always believed in exposure, exposure, exposure.  Children are sponges, drench them in rich language and they'll surprise you.  For teachers, this book offers plenty of opportunities to explore personification, onomatopoeias, metaphors, similes and of course, poetry.  Happy Poetry Month!