[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]One of our enduring commitments at the Wisconsin Water Library is helping caregivers and educators build scientific and ecological literacies in young children. We often discuss how lucky we are to catch pre-K to second graders at a time, developmentally, when reading literacy and other forms of literacy are not quite as decoupled as they become for middle graders and teens. As we make selections for our children’s picture book collection, we take care to ask how a title speaks to our science education mission. Three gorgeously poetic books by Julia Fogliano (in partnership with the talented illustrators Erin Stead and Julie Morstad) make our job easy.
Subtly, but masterfully, Fogliano writes about whale watching, the expectant march to springtime, and the natural-cultural texture of the four seasons while conveying—intentionally or not—some of the most important tenets of the scientific method: waiting and observing.
If You Want to See a Whale serves as a tender instruction manual for what it takes to spot a whale in the ocean: mainly, an avoidance of distraction! Fogliano simultaneously celebrates the beauty distraction offers while conveying an important lesson about patience and waiting . . . and watching with the goal of making new discoveries.
Fogliano, Julie, and Erin E Stead. 2013. If You Want to See a Whale.
if you want to see a whale
you will need a window
and an ocean
and time for waiting
and time for looking
and time for wondering “is that a whale?”
if you want to see a whale
you’ll have to just ignore the roses
and all their pink
and all their sweet
and all their wild and waving
because roses don’t want you watching whales
or waiting for
or wondering about
things that are not pink
and things that are not sweet
and things that are not roses
And Then It’s Spring follows suit marching through the waiting entailed to see the first green of spring, including a brown that becomes less and less intolerable.
Fogliano, Julie, and Erin E Stead. 2012. And Then It’s Spring. New York: Scholastic.
First you have brown,
all around you have brown
then there are seeds
and a wish for rain
and then it rains
and it is still brown,
but a hopeful, very possible sort of brown . . .
Finally, in her more recent, When Green Becomes Tomatoes, Fogliano offers poetry for all seasons, building an observational taxonmy: a crocus blooming in the snow, a dog sniffing spring lilacs, the quiet of summer and its brilliant stars. . .
Fogliano, Julie, and Julie Morstad. 2016. When Green Becomes Tomatoes.
a star is someone else’s sun
more flicker glow than blinding
a speck of light too far for bright
and too small to make a morning
We hope to collect Julie Fogliano’s work for a very long time. And we hope you will, too.
Water(B)logged is a series we bring to you this July/August 2017 as a departing project of an adoring Wisconsin Water Library library assistant who wishes to celebrate her favorite things about this most special of special libraries.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]