We Are Branches

by Joyce Sidman, Beth Krommes (Illustrator)

Overview

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?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358538189
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/02/2023
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	164,218
Product dimensions:	9.60(w) x 10.60(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

The Newbery Honor winner and Sibert Medalist Joyce Sidman is today's foremost nature poet for children.  Accolades for her books include two Caldecott Honors, a Lee Bennet Hopkins Award, winner of the Claudia Lews Award, and many stars and best of lists.  For her award-winning body of work, she won the Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. She lives in Wayzata, Minnesota. Visit www.joycesidman.com

 

 

Beth Krommes is the Caldecott Winning illustrator of The House in the Night  and other beautifully illustrated, much-acclaimed picture books like Swirl by Swirl, and  Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. She lives in Peterborough, NH. Visit her online at www.bethkrommes.com.

Editorial Reviews

03/27/2023

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)

Publishers Weekly

★ "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

"Via instantly recognizable scratchboard spreads, Krommes draws branching life with exquisite delicacy. Further information about patterns in nature concludes this striking study of growing forms’ startling similarity." — Publishers Weekly

"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)

From the Publisher

2023-02-08
The creators of Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (2011) salute another of the world’s essential and ubiquitous patterns.

“Branching is nature’s most efficient way to spread something…from one central spot over a large area,” Sidman writes at the end—going on in prose to unpack examples her preceding free verse just touches on and to introduce the concept of fractals. By that point she has taken readers through the natural world, beginning with tree branches, “lifting toward the sun, / spreading wide / to catch each / drop of light,” and proceeding to roots, the wings of birds and butterflies, lightning, coral, snowflakes, and, finally, closer to home, arms, legs, and blood vessels: “Then we pour back in rivers / toward your heart.” Flowing with similar strength and lyricism, Krommes’ color scratchboard scenes offer minutely examined bat wings and flowers along with glimpses of a trio of playful tan-skinned children in support of the poet’s rapturous conclusion that branching is “the shape of life!” They also reflect a broader truth with scenes of forked rivers and lightning, fronds of frost, a flat expanse of cracked mud, and deeply furrowed mountain slopes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Explores a fundamental concept with characteristic grace and simplicity. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews