We Are Branches
by Joyce Sidman (Author) Beth Krommes (Illustrator)
Caldecott winner Beth Krommes and Newbery Honor-winning poet Joyce Sidman team up in this singular celebration of a beautiful, fascinating shape in nature. A nonfiction picture book companion to their acclaimed Swirl by Swirl.
Branches are all around us: in butterfly wings, on gecko toes, in flowers, frost, and mud. Whether as electricity moving across the sky or rivers flowing to the sea, branches are nature's most efficient way to spread and to connect. They are even found inside our own bodies, helping us reach and grow with each breath and heartbeat.
Branches--strong, hopeful, beautiful--are the shape of life. How many can you find?
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Publishers Weekly
Living things--and not just trees--often grow in branching forms, as detailed in this intricate picture book. Via instantly recognizable scratchboard spreads, Krommes draws branching life with exquisite delicacy, ranging across landscapes and locales. "Look/ how we grow: / lifting toward the sun," Sidman writes in expansive lines as illustrations look upward into the branches of a forest. Tree roots take this form, too ("We sink... to drink/ and grasp and steady")--as do rivers, lightning bolts, ice crystals, coral, animalian limbs, and more (about the wing bones of short-nosed fruit bats, "arms that stretch wide/ into fabulous fingers"). In graceful, generous profusion, various labeled organic forms are shown dividing and redividing into smaller sections while children of varying skin tones play in the background. Further information about patterns in nature concludes this striking study of growing forms' startling similarity: "Branching is the shape of life!" Ages 4-8. (May)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
★ Poetic text and luminous scratchboard illustrations with refined watercolors explain the purpose of different branches from the branches' points of view. This STEM concept book turns to STEAM through exquisite detail and design. — Booklist (starred review)
The creators of Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (2011) salute another of the world's essential and ubiquitous patterns. Explores a fundamental concept with characteristic grace and simplicity. — Kirkus Reviews
With spare but imagistic text, Sidman highlights the interconnectedness of life, clearly conveying how branching is an essential part of nature. Krommes' defined, crisp scratchboard art is especially effective.
— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Praise for Swirl by Swirl: ★ Elegantly constructed, and as poetry, picture book, or nonfiction, a success in every way. — Horn Book (starred review)
★ Exquisitely simple and memorable. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
★ Striking . . . Will make the everyday fascinating. — ALA Booklist (starred review)
★ One of those rare children's books that make you look at the physical world differently. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
★ Gorgeous. — School Library Journal (starred review)
JNF013070 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Concepts | Size & Shape
Children's poetry, American
Plants
Crystals
Pattern perception
Branching (Botany)
