HELLO, EARTH!

Conversational, inquisitive, and admiring poems question, explore, and honor our Earth.

An ardent, earnest collective narrative voice (identifying as the Earth’s human children) directly addresses the planet throughout this dazzling collection, explaining in the first poem that “we have been studying you, Earth, / but we long to learn more.” Each poem succinctly explores just one topic, allowing young readers to really ponder that individual, awe-inspiring subject. Readers find wonder in its volcanoes, deserts, plates, tides, jungles, oceans, weather, and mysteries, and they will enjoy frequent questions posed to Earth herself. “Earth, / do you love your dry places / as much as your watery ones? / Your tropics / as much as your ice?” Precise, naïve illustrations place the horizon line low and employ double-page spreads to capture the Earth’s great dome of sky, broad terrain, and wide waters. It’s fun to locate the little people (of all skin tones), fish, dinosaurs, monkeys, snakes, cats, and more within these large illustrations—and especially fun to squint and interpret their teeny experiences on Earth. Backmatter groups poems under larger scientific headers, with explanatory paragraphs that flesh out the concepts introduced in verse. Additional resources appear as well, with URLs of child-friendly climate change and conservation websites as well as a bibliography for those interested in further reading.

Lithe, accessible poetry celebrates our world’s mind-boggling grandeur—and humanity’s role as her steward.