Reviews

Before Morning by Joyce Sidman

j_b_'s review

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5.0

To quote a co-worker, "This book gave me goosebumps." The words are heartbreakingly beautiful. I could drown in the illustrations. Perfect for a rainy day storytime.

michelle_neuwirth_gray9311's review

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2.0

I enjoyed the text more than the illustrations.

lara_lleverino's review

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5.0

I think I heard about this book as a recommendation for a book that celebrates the idea of place, of taking joy in where you are, in putting down roots and slowing down enough to love home. This book absolutely envokes the sense of a cozy winter morning when you wake to the muffled silence of an overnight snowfall. BEAUTIFUL illustrations!!!!

backonthealex's review

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5.0

An ordinary cold winter's day, a walk through the park and along the street with mom and the dog, eating dinner as a family with mom and dad, mom reading a bedtime story, then folding the laundry before she leaves for work as an airplane pilot...But maybe, just this once, if it is said just the right way and using just the right words, a wished for snowstorm might just bring mom back home. Written in rhyme, Sidman employed the literary device of invocation for expressing the young girl's wish for snow and her mom's return: "Let the air turn to feathers/the earth turn to sugar/and all that is heavy/be light." What is invocation? Sidman includes a note On Wishes and Invocations. How powerful are words? she asks, and what would you wish for? I loved that it is the mom who is the pilot, and the dad who stays home with their daughter. Beth Krommes watercolor illustrations done on scratchboard in a palette of wintery browns, golds, and blues with touches of other color (like winter itself). Using the scratchboard technique really gives each illustration so much depth and texture. This is a charming story where the art and the rhyme really come together so beautifully in this heartwarming family story.

wordnerd153's review

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4.0

A beautifully illustrated celebration of family and the magic of snow days. Lots of details to pore over in the pictures. The first few pages just beg readers to make inferences, which would make this an excellent resource in classrooms.

lizpatanders's review

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4.0

This is a sweet book about wanting the world to slow down when it snows. Might be a good book to try for storytime.

libraryalexa's review

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Pretty illustrations

raoionna's review

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4.0

Encapsulates the wonderful feeling of waking up on a snowy day

ashleyjapan's review

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5.0

I was utterly charmed by this picture book, with its gorgeous settings and atmospheric verse. If I had a small kid, this would be my go-to bedtime story!

maidmarianlib's review

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4.0

Lovely invocation poem with the pictures adding to and even creating the story behind the words. Lovely scratch board like illustrations are visually complex and interesting.