With original and spot-on perceptions, Joyce Sidman brings the colors of the seasons to life in a fresh light, combining the senses of sight, sound...
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Nov 06, 2011
Wendy
rated it: 
Genre: Children’s Book, Poetry, Science
Summary:
Aspects of each season are portrayed through poems that highlight the wildlife, weather, pivotal events, and occurrences. The colors that routinely occur throughout each season are also brought to the forefront in both the poetry and the text color.
The illustrations capture a magical world, filled with life and change. The artistic technique of mixed media gives added depth and texture, bringing a whimsical quality t More...
Summary:
Aspects of each season are portrayed through poems that highlight the wildlife, weather, pivotal events, and occurrences. The colors that routinely occur throughout each season are also brought to the forefront in both the poetry and the text color.
The illustrations capture a magical world, filled with life and change. The artistic technique of mixed media gives added depth and texture, bringing a whimsical quality t More...
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Mar 31, 2009
Tasha
rated it: 
Move through the seasons with the colors built into verses dedicated to a color and the season. Delight in the fact that spring is more than just green as Sidman weaves all of the colors into spring some in quite surprising and insightful ways. The whimsical paintings of Zagarenski also offer a complexity and uniqueness to the title. This is much more than spring being green and filled with flowers. Here spring is red with cardinals, white with lightning, blue sky, yellow goldfinches, and pi
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Apr 01, 2011
Natalia
rated it:
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,
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Jan 26, 2011
Luann
rated it:
I wasn't sure how much I would really like this one from the book description. And I didn't immediately love it. But the more time I spent with each page, reading the text and then noticing all the fun details in the illustrations, I really started to love it! So I went back to the beginning and started over. This isn't a book to just read your way through and glance at the illustrations. This is a book to read and reread, to savor and enjoy, to read aloud, to pore over the illustrations and
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Sep 22, 2009
Elizabeth
rated it:
As a child I had many favorite books and it was only when I got older that they crystallized in my brain enough so that I could chose a “favorite”. But if you asked me today what book I loved more than any other, I don’t think I’d be too off-base when I said it was Tasha Tudor’s A Time to Keep. Now there are a couple of reasons for this. I liked how she drew cupcakes, I liked the corgis, and I particularly liked the idea of kids running around playing games and pranks each month. But the thi
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(3 people liked it)
Oct 02, 2011
Ezekiel
rated it:
Wow. The poetry of the colors is even beautiful for adults to listen to (no "brown cow jumped over the moon into a bow" for this book!), with word placement adding to the rhythm. The illustrations are beautiful as well, with lots of detail (everything mentioned in the poetry is in the illustrations, but often small, it could indeed be a bit of a search for kids to figure out what the line is referring to and to then find the picture of it). I loved the person depicted, along with th
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Oct 17, 2011
Kristine
rated it: 
Colors come alive throughout the seasons in this delightfully whimsical tale penned by an award-winning poet. Lyrical writing captures the sights, smells, tastes, and mood of red singing from treetops, green trilling from trees, brown rustling and whispering, and white floating while the opulently-dressed, triangle-shaped main character plays outside, primarily with his canine companion. Intricate mixed media and computer-illustrated art accurately bring the child’s adventures to life with text
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Mar 18, 2010
Ch_amyM
rated it:
"In Summer, White clinks in drinks. Yellow melts everything it touches... smells like butter, tastes like salt." In Red Sings From the Treetops, Joyce Sidman takes you on a beautiful journey of the seasons that stimulates the senses. You can almost feel the seasons as she describes them and await each color and how she'll relate it to the season.
I enjoyed reading this book to myself and was engaged by how Sidman describes the seasons using color. This is a great book for a read- More...
I enjoyed reading this book to myself and was engaged by how Sidman describes the seasons using color. This is a great book for a read- More...
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Oct 18, 2011
Jerri
rated it: 
1. Picture Book- Concept
2. An interesting spin for a concept book, the author takes the reader on a journey through the four seasons giving them a chance to experience color in many different ways.
3. a. Text and Illustrations
b. I was a little confused by this book if I can be totally honest. I felt as though the book was too wordy or poetry like for a concept book. I had a hard time following or keeping my interest and I am an adult. Because of this I do no More...
2. An interesting spin for a concept book, the author takes the reader on a journey through the four seasons giving them a chance to experience color in many different ways.
3. a. Text and Illustrations
b. I was a little confused by this book if I can be totally honest. I felt as though the book was too wordy or poetry like for a concept book. I had a hard time following or keeping my interest and I am an adult. Because of this I do no More...
Oct 11, 2009
earthy
rated it:
Fantastic, whimsical illustrations incorporate collages of colors and words on wood and paper. The patterns, textures, and colors are vibrant and detailed, making the eye linger to catch all the elements. In fall and winter scenes, the colors are dark but never dull; in spring and summer scenes, the colors are light and playful. "Poetry is a poet's intuition of truth," writes Galda. "Poets select words and arrange them carefully to call attention to experiences we have not kno
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Feb 01, 2011
L11Beverly
rated it:
The Red Sings From Treetops book is a poem of seasons described with color metaphors. The book won a 2010 Caldecott medal. The detailed illustrations were hard not to study. The birds look like arrows drawing your eyes through the pages. The book begins in spring where the red is compared to the chirping of birds and cherries and they are illustrated as cherry looking musical notes. This same image is repeated at the end of the book in winter, like the circle story of the seasons. This boo
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Nov 18, 2010
Nancy
rated it:
Published: 2009, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Age: PreK
This is a picture poem book examining the colors of the seasons. Sidman’s free verse and Zagarenski’s multimedia, collage, and wood painted images combine to bring every page alive with the sights, smells, and details of each season. Simple and earthy poetic language is used, such as rhyme and repetition to accentuate the feeling of the season. Sidman also uses onomatopoeia to make sounds come alive. The reader feels the rhythm More...
Age: PreK
This is a picture poem book examining the colors of the seasons. Sidman’s free verse and Zagarenski’s multimedia, collage, and wood painted images combine to bring every page alive with the sights, smells, and details of each season. Simple and earthy poetic language is used, such as rhyme and repetition to accentuate the feeling of the season. Sidman also uses onomatopoeia to make sounds come alive. The reader feels the rhythm More...
Oct 03, 2010
Jenny
rated it:
First and foremost, I love the textured illustrations! I guess there's a reason this book was in the running for a Caldecott! This book takes the reader on a journey through the seasons by poetically speaking of the colors in each.
"In SPRING,
Red sings
from treeetops:
cheer-cheer-cheer,
each note dropping
like a cherry
into my ear."
I love the thought of color doing things! Reading this book made me feel more observant and more in More...
"In SPRING,
Red sings
from treeetops:
cheer-cheer-cheer,
each note dropping
like a cherry
into my ear."
I love the thought of color doing things! Reading this book made me feel more observant and more in More...
Feb 28, 2010
Mary Ann
rated it:
Do you remember when your preschooler first started to notice the seasons changing around her? I remember my children being fascinated with the crunching of brown leaves or the bright green of new grass. Sidman and Zagarenski evoke wonderful memories of new seasons by focusing on the colors of our world, and they do so in a complex, unique way. Spring is much more than green: red with cardinals, maple buds and rhubarb spears, yellow with goldfinches, and white with lightning. This is a wonderful
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Mar 24, 2009
nicole
rated it:
I can't make it past page one of most children's poetry books, but this one is different. The colors drew me in first. While I'm not in love with the style of illustration itself, I REALLY like the use of color, and how the poems connect to the subtle palette of each page. Most picture books about color are completely saturated, but this one isn't obvious like that, it encourages LOOKING. You have to find the white, the pink, the yellow. The first page, about red, is primarily green, for example
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Jan 12, 2012
Jessy
rated it:
Caldecott Award
The talks about a different color on each page and highlights the word each time it is used. It uses many objects of each season to describe the color it is talking about. The book does a good job of using descriptive words that we wouldn't see or use in our daily lives. I think this book would be great for upper grades (3-6) to help expand their vocabulary. I think the way the illustrations intertwine with the descriptive words do a lot to keep a student int More...
The talks about a different color on each page and highlights the word each time it is used. It uses many objects of each season to describe the color it is talking about. The book does a good job of using descriptive words that we wouldn't see or use in our daily lives. I think this book would be great for upper grades (3-6) to help expand their vocabulary. I think the way the illustrations intertwine with the descriptive words do a lot to keep a student int More...
Feb 10, 2010
Karla
rated it:
An entire book of poems about colors and weather ~ how can it possibly keep the reader's interest? I was sceptical. However, Joyce Sidman's images are so evocative, so crisp, I was completely captivated ~ "In spring, Red sings from treetops: cheer-cheer-cheer, each note dropping like a cherry into my ear/Red turns the maples feathery, sprouts in rhubarb spears; Red squirms on the road after rain." I read the whole thing cover to cover in one sitting. Pamela Zagarenski's fanciful an
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Sep 02, 2010
Ningerbil
rated it:
A really neat, very different book on colors. Great for children who have mastered the basics of color, and may want to be shown a different way of thinking about them. The whimsical illustrations go nicely with the free-verse poetry. I also love how each color is described through the various season, some more dominant and different times. I also really liked how it ends like it starts, a complete circle. The illustrations are playful, with the characters dressed in motley clothes and wearing c
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Mar 02, 2010
Carolynne
rated it:
Colorful collage paintings helped Joyce Sidman win ALA Notable Book and Caldecott Honor Book awards for this whimsical book of poetry. Several curriculum applications: poetry (including poetic language like rhyme, repetition, alliteration), seasons, colors, vocabulary (turquoise, azure, cerulean). Sidman makes some subtle observations:
"Purple pours
into summer evenings
one shadow at a time,
so slowly
I don't notice until
hill,
house,
book in my More...
"Purple pours
into summer evenings
one shadow at a time,
so slowly
I don't notice until
hill,
house,
book in my More...
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Mar 09, 2010
Kathryn
rated it:
I love this book! While primarily a collection of poetry about different facets of the seasons, there is also a continuity in both the poetry and the illustration which makes it a story. It is like a love song to the seasons and to all the treasures we find if we have eyes and hearts for nature. I love how the colors keep reappearing in different ways throughout the seasons. Poetry is so subjective and I admit that I am not always a fan of children's poetry books, but I think this is a true
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Nov 07, 2011
Fenixbird
rated it:
CALDECOTT HONOR PICTURE BOOK 2011 Can colors feel? Author Sidman’s poetry fills our minds with the rhythm and movement of seasons in vivid Technicolor. Ms. Sidman’s kingly main character and his dog experience--as do we the reader--many moods, temperatures, and vividly illustrated rhythms of life as seasonal palettes change. Spring gives way to Summer’s vivid blues, yellows; and greens give way to Autumnal coloring. Even black and white each have their “dance” and let us “feel” their colors
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May 15, 2011
Abigail
rated it:
Poet Joyce Sidman and artist Pamela Zagarenski, who previously collaborated on 2007's This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness, joined forces once again in this lovely picture-book, which was chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book in 2010. An exploration of the seasons, and the colors that weave through them - the new, "shy" green of spring, the "humming, shimmering, snoozing" blue of summer, the "fat and glossy" brown of fall, the "powder-soft" pin
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May 07, 2010
Lisa
rated it:
This book is truly creative and unusual in a very good way. I admit it took me several pages to get used to the illustration of the person/queen? Then, I grew fond of all the illustrations.
So unique! While this is free form poetry story of the passing of the seasons honors the joys of each season, my favorite aspect was how the many colors written about were written in their color. This makes it terrific for teaching colors too, and not just the typical colors featured in “learn your More...
So unique! While this is free form poetry story of the passing of the seasons honors the joys of each season, my favorite aspect was how the many colors written about were written in their color. This makes it terrific for teaching colors too, and not just the typical colors featured in “learn your More...
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May 24, 2011
Shannon
rated it:
This must have been a slap in the face to Joyce Sidman when her illustrator received a Caldecott Honor for this book and she received nothing.
No worries, she got her due when she got a Newbery honor for Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, which is vastly superior to this book of poetry anyway.
We've been using this in our conversation of literal vs. figurative language and our introduction of idioms (I love idioms, why did it take me until May to get to them this year? More...
No worries, she got her due when she got a Newbery honor for Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, which is vastly superior to this book of poetry anyway.
We've been using this in our conversation of literal vs. figurative language and our introduction of idioms (I love idioms, why did it take me until May to get to them this year? More...
Jan 04, 2010
Julianne
rated it:
This is a lovely children's picture book. I believe I found it on a list of "Possible Caldecott Award Books" for 2009. It tells and shows the colors of the four seasons. And thankfully, it gives each season more than four colors.
First, read it with your kids. Then go back and pour over each picture. There's a lot to look at in this book! Lots of recurring items in the pictures. Look for the fox, the crowns, the red birds and House #15.
Is it pore, pour o
First, read it with your kids. Then go back and pour over each picture. There's a lot to look at in this book! Lots of recurring items in the pictures. Look for the fox, the crowns, the red birds and House #15.
Is it pore, pour o
Nov 23, 2011
Dolly
rated it:
This is a wonderful book of poems that describe the colors throughout the year as the seasons change. Very appropriate for our latitude (compared to when we lived in Hawaii!), this book shows how nature's colors wax and wane and change all year. The poems are short and the illustrations are colorful, with lots of patterns and textures. I love that the poems are so expressive and paint a word picture that children can really grasp and appreciate. I listened as our oldest read these poems alou
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Dec 14, 2009
Toby
rated it:
I love Joyce Sidman's books - Song of the Water Boatmen is one of my all-time favorites - and I like that each one has been paired with a different, but equally accomplished, illustrator. Red Sings from Treetops is a concept book that both young children & older children will pore over, tracing thematic images, such as wheels & crowns & a red bird, from page to page, examining the details of the strange & unusual figures through the seasons of the year.
Jul 28, 2010
Melissa
rated it:
In Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors you will find a sing song verse of each season. "In Summer, White clinks in drinks. Yellow melts everything it touches... smells like butter, tastes like salt." Each verse takes you on the journey of the ever changing seasons using all of your senses.
The illustrations are to die for. I love how the author incorporates the lines with the illustrations. Excellent book!
(Caldecott Honor, 2010)
The illustrations are to die for. I love how the author incorporates the lines with the illustrations. Excellent book!
(Caldecott Honor, 2010)
Jan 26, 2012
Kristine
rated it:
Colors come alive throughout the seasons in this delightfully whimsical tale penned by an award-winning poet. Lyrical writing captures the sights, smells, tastes, and mood of red singing from treetops, green trilling from trees, brown rustling and whispering, and white floating while the opulently-dressed, triangle-shaped main character plays outside, primarily with his canine companion. Intricate mixed media and computer-illustrated art accurately bring the child’s adventures to life with text
More...
Mar 12, 2009
Elaine
rated it:
"Red Sings from Treetops" is another fine poetry collection from Joyce Sidman, one of my favorite children's poets. Pamela Zagarenski's illustrations in the book are absolutely wonderful! This book is a perfect pairing of poetry and pictures from the two people who gave us "This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness"--the book that won the 2007 Cybils Award for Poetry. I give this book my highest recommendation.
