Spring Is Here! Celebrate the Earth!

Categories: Outdoors & Nature , Children's Books , Arts & Crafts

Celebrating Spring and our earth, Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale (2007) is a German children's poem with gorgeous needlework illustrations by quilter Sieglinde Schoen Smith. This is a modern translation by Jack Zipes of Sibylle von Olfers' 1907 German book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Soon we'll see Mother Earth's ABC.

Smith took Olfers' illustrations and created a gorgeous award-winning quilt based on the original illustrations. She started quilting for comfort after her son passed away, and the book is dedicated to him.

Another lovely book celebrating spring is Monarch and Milkweed (2008) by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore. Beautifully illustrated, the book describes the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly, so closely dependent on the Milkweed plant.

Another one for Spring is Ruth Brown's Ten Seeds (2001), the pictorial countdown from 10 seeds to one sunflower in the garden, naturally giving us ten more seeds.

Happy Spring!