Amazon.com
Inspired by Debra Frasier's enormously popular On the Day You Were Born, this charming photo journal invites families to celebrate the arrival of their loved one into the natural world. A star-spangled blue sky, crossed by a swath of sunshine yellow with gold birds, introduces the reader to "the very first day you arrived." Baby's picture and name go right in the middle of all the cheery yellow. Turn the page: "You were born on the round planet Earth. Was it day, or was it night?" is printed with another space for a picture and a line to write the date and time of birth against the backdrop of more starry sky with that old blue and green globe plopped in the middle and a figure of a child frolicking across the ocean. On another page, the jubilant child dances across a beach: "On the day you were born waves washed the beaches clean for your footprints. How little were your fingers? How tiny were your toes?"
By adding eight photographs and filling in a few details, parents can create a very special journal for their child, rejoicing together in all the natural wonders of the universe. Here is an ideal gift for the new parents with a vibrant connection to nature. --Emilie Coulter
From Publishers Weekly
Offering a curious amalgam of the mystical and the scientific, Frasier's first picture book is a paean to nature and to birth. The poetic text explains how the sun, moon, ocean tides, rain, trees, air, animals and people of the world work together to create a welcoming setting for a baby's arrival. Young readers will find Frasier's rhythmic passages soothing, if not always entirely comprehensible: "On the day you were born the Moon pulled on the ocean below, and, wave by wave, a rising tide washed the beaches clean for your footprints. . . ." The volume concludes with notes on the natural and technical phenomena mentioned in the text, including animal migration, the rotation of the earth, gravity, stellar constellations and precipitation. Illustrating this unusual book, Frasier's paper collages feature a mostly muted palette of earth tones that is somewhat lacking in child appeal. Though it might spark interesting discussions with an older child, this work will be over the heads of little ones. All ages. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-- All young children believe themselves to be the center of everything; here is a book that allows them to maintain that stance while learning just what makes up the universe. Through prose both gentle and sure, Frasier informs her audience: "On the eve of your birth/ word of your coming/passed from animal to animal." Moreover, "the quiet Moon glowed/ and offered to bring/ a full, bright face/ each month,/ to your windowsill . . . ." Simple paper collages in warm, vibrant hues depict a childlike form moving through a world that curves and bends, nutures and welcomes. In some scenes the child is rendered in shades of buff or light yellow, but appears just as often as red-brown, darker brown, or black. The text reads like unrhymed poetry, and both parents and educators will find themselves wanting to share this book over and over with individuals and with groups. A three-page appendix that includes minature versions of each spread elaborates on natural phenomena for older readers--migrating animals, spinning Earth, rising tide, falling rain, growing trees, and more. A book filled with reverence for the natural order of the world and the place of the individual within it.- Eve Larkin, Chicago Public LibraryCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"On the Day You Were Born has been welcoming children to our miraculous planet for ten years. This astonishes me. It has been a great honor to be a part of so many children's lives."-Debra Frasier
Book Description
In simple words and radiant collages, Debra Frasier celebrates the natural miracles of the earth and extends an exuberant welcome to each member of our human family. Accompanied by a detailed glossary explaining such natural phenomena as gravity, tides, and migration, this is an unforgettable book. “A book filled with reverence for the natural order of the world and the place of the individual in it.”--School Library Journal
Card catalog description
The earth celebrates the birth of a newborn baby.
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