My Friend, the Starfinder

Another wonderful picture book by George Ella Lyon is My Friend, the Starfinder.  George Ella is a poet, and her feeling for words makes this book a delight to read.  The illustrator is Stephen Gammell.  He's a Caldecott Medal winner, and the pictures in this book and in Come a Tide pull you right into each story.  I love studying them because they wrap George Ella's story in layers and layers of beauty and meaning.

Come a Tide

One of my favorite picture books is Come a Tide, written by George Ella Lyon and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.  It's a fun book to read with natural, easy rhythm.  Most of all, it is an important book for children to hear and later to read themselves.  It tells a story of how a family and a community overcome a disaster with perseverance, strong family ties, and community involvement.  In this book, people care for neighbors.  And, Come a Tide has one of my favorite lines in children's literature.  If you read the book, see if you can pick out what that line is.

George Ella was a friend from college days in Kentucky.  We both took a poetry course from Howard Nemerov.  I can see George Ella in class now.  She always sat next to the man who would become her husband and she was always writing.  Since then, she has published poetry, many picture books, and young adult novels.  Her heart and her heritage come through in her writing.