America the Beautiful

Rating:
Summary: America is the Beautiful
Review: A visual record of a cross-country trip that was inspired by the poem America the Beautiful with vibrant, expressive watercolors set in pastels and earthy tones.

There are fourteen panoramas in this thirty-two page book that covers east to west and north to south. One line of the first verse is placed on one side among the two-pages. The waterfalls appear misty with the dark clouds looming behind. This image was captured in rainbow colors tapering off as the water hits the bottom. The rolling hills are dotted in pinks, purples and greens as the spacious skies flow across the page.

Then we have the calm ness of the bulls or buffalo grazing before turning to find the purple mountains majesties. The fruited plains consist of teal green and blues showing a few people working in the fields. This is a beautiful picture that gives the image of working in the fields as rewarding and serene. The second page with America! as the text is spectacular with tall bare trees as if you were standing down at the bottom looking up at them. It appears to be a moment captured of a father and son looking at the forest.

This is a beautiful one-of-a-kind book that deserves to be sitting on the coffee table to highlight the splendor in these images set to this patriotic song. Inside are man-made wonders, natural ones, ancient dwellings, glaciers, desert, sea and rain forests. The colors evoke a range of emotions as you flip through the pages of America the Beautiful. Now that I have these portraits nestled in my memory the song will take on such new meaning.

Readers young and old can delight in the beauty that can be found along the roads traveling inside the United States. This would make a great gift for anyone planning summer excursions within the country. America the Beautiful would be appreciated by older relatives to remind them of the locations they have visited as well as offer the younger ones a sense of the beauty that is found at these places while learning the words of the poem and singing the song.

Rating:
Summary: Great for kids!
Review: I wanted to just "read" the book to the kids. But gosh, I started singing it. And did they love it. I sang and flipped pages as fast as I could. Over and over. I teach preschool and this was America week. This was pretty much the only book about America their "level." It has beautiful "impressionistic" painitings of all sorts of beautiful and significant places in America that you can talk about. And if you are proud and interested, the kids will be too. We sit on a map rug so the kids are getting familiar with all our landmarks. But this book helps learn the song and gets them familiar with our nation. The last page has a picture of the Statue of Liberty in the harbor, "from sea to shining sea." I felt so good to read this to the kids. Please get this to make not only children feel good about where they come from, but also you as well!

Rating:
Summary: Review by Livingston Parent Journal
Review: Samuel Ward (1847-1903) was the organist at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark in 1882. One day a melody popped into his head as he was riding the boat back from Coney Island. He called it "Materna" and it was first published in 1888.

Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) was an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In 1893 she made a trip by train to Colorado. From the to of Pikes Peak she saw the Rocky Mountains in one direction and the Great Plains in the other, and she felt inspired to write about the beauty of America. Her poem was published in the Fourth of July issue of The Congregationalist in 1895. Her poem was popularly sung to Ward's tune, and they were first published together in 1910.(...)

Later in the 1900s Neil Waldman was staying at a kibbutz in Israel. His friend Moti Shuvai insisted that they take a road trip together through America. They traveled from New York through the Northern Rockies, down along the Pacific Coast, back through the Southwest and the South to New York, 13,000 miles. Waldman combines his sixteen paintings, "a visual record of that first cross-country trip", with the words to "America the Beautiful", written by Katharine Lee Bates, to make a children's book that celebrates the scenic glory of America. "...it should inspire readers with a desire to see these wonders for themselves."(School Library Journal)

In the foreword he says this, "...I have traveled to four continents and more than a score of countries, but nothing I have seen can match the magnificent splendor that lies within our own borders."

Parents will have a chance to tell about when they have visited these places, or make plans with their children to do so, because an appendix describes all of the places featured in the paintings. They include Niagara Falls, The Great Smoky Mountains, The Grand Canyon and the California Redwoods. Families also could talk about the beautiful places in Michigan or even Livingston County that Bates and Waldman unfortunately never had a chance to see. Or other places you have visited that are not included like Florida, Alaska, or Hawaii.

This book also helps to make art and poetry accessible to children of all ages, and each child can relate to it in his own way. The folks at Publishers Weekly relate to it like this: "...he renders each vista in thick, impressionistic strokes from a predominantly violet palette, choosing his colors as if from a paradigmatic sunset." (If that helps you at all.)

Also included are all four stanzas and sheet music.

Rating:
Summary: Review by Livingston Parent Journal
Review: Samuel Ward (1847-1903) was the organist at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark in 1882. One day a melody popped into his head as he was riding the boat back from Coney Island. He called it "Materna" and it was first published in 1888.

Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) was an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In 1893 she made a trip by train to Colorado. From the to of Pikes Peak she saw the Rocky Mountains in one direction and the Great Plains in the other, and she felt inspired to write about the beauty of America. Her poem was published in the Fourth of July issue of The Congregationalist in 1895. Her poem was popularly sung to Ward's tune, and they were first published together in 1910.(...)

Later in the 1900s Neil Waldman was staying at a kibbutz in Israel. His friend Moti Shuvai insisted that they take a road trip together through America. They traveled from New York through the Northern Rockies, down along the Pacific Coast, back through the Southwest and the South to New York, 13,000 miles. Waldman combines his sixteen paintings, "a visual record of that first cross-country trip", with the words to "America the Beautiful", written by Katharine Lee Bates, to make a children's book that celebrates the scenic glory of America. "...it should inspire readers with a desire to see these wonders for themselves."(School Library Journal)

In the foreword he says this, "...I have traveled to four continents and more than a score of countries, but nothing I have seen can match the magnificent splendor that lies within our own borders."

Parents will have a chance to tell about when they have visited these places, or make plans with their children to do so, because an appendix describes all of the places featured in the paintings. They include Niagara Falls, The Great Smoky Mountains, The Grand Canyon and the California Redwoods. Families also could talk about the beautiful places in Michigan or even Livingston County that Bates and Waldman unfortunately never had a chance to see. Or other places you have visited that are not included like Florida, Alaska, or Hawaii.

This book also helps to make art and poetry accessible to children of all ages, and each child can relate to it in his own way. The folks at Publishers Weekly relate to it like this: "...he renders each vista in thick, impressionistic strokes from a predominantly violet palette, choosing his colors as if from a paradigmatic sunset." (If that helps you at all.)

Also included are all four stanzas and sheet music.

Rating:
Summary: It has wondeful illustrations.
Review: The book has good illustrations and it has the song five times. The illustrations go very nicely with the words to the song.