SIDMAN POETRY

RED SINGS FROM TREETOPS: A YEAR IN COLORS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sidman, Joyce. 2009. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. Ills. By Pamela Zagarenski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. ISBN 0547014947.

SUMMARY

In this poetry book, Joyce Sidman chronicles the changing seasons through descriptions of the way different colors appear in each season.  Beginning with spring, Sidman uses personification to describe the colors of the season, continuing this pattern for summer, autumn, and winter.  As winter comes to an end, the red cardinal reappears just as on the first page, emphasizing the circular cycle of the seasons.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The Poet

Joyce Sidman is a renowned, award-winning children’s writer. She is the 2006 recipient of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for Song of the Water Boatman and ALA’s Best Book for Young Adults for The World According to Dog.  She is known to write works related to nature and set in nature, such as Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. Sidman is also known for writing poems in different voices that she imagines, creates, and tells stories through.

Layout

This book is laid out to follow each season, therefore broken up into 4 parts: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  Each section then includes descriptions of the colors of that particular season.  The pages are dedicated to a particular color of that season, making the flow of the narrative easy to follow.

Pamela Zagarenski’s brilliant colors and whimsical illustrations complement Sidman’s poetic language.  Zagarenski skillfully blends colors visually recreate Sidman’s descriptions. A drawing of a girl appears throughout the book, driving the narrative forward as the seasons change, and a red cardinal that appears on every page serves as a reminder of the cyclical nature of life.

Poetic Elements

Joyce Sidman uses free-verse poetry to bring the beautiful colors of the seasons to life. Through unrhymed verse, she is able to direct the reader’s focus to the imagery that describes each season.

Sidman employs various sound techniques like alliteration and onomatopoeia throughout this collection of poems that celebrate the colors of the seasons.  When describing blue, for instance, she says that the sun brings about a “sudden[],/sparkling spring sky!” By using the alliterative s sound, Sidman accentuates the sprightly color of blue.  In her description of white, Sidman says that the color “sounds like storms:/snapped twigs and bouncing hail,/blink of lightning/and rattling BOOM!”  By using various onomatopoeic sounds, readers are able to synesthetically experience the color white.

To accentuate the colors of the season, Sidman uses figurative language like personification and similes to further create imagery for readers.  When describing the yellow of Spring, for instance, she writes that “Yellow and Purple hold hands” as “They beam at each other with bright velvet faces.” By personifying these two colors, the reader is able to imagine how they blend seamlessly and how they coordinate together so well.

Appeal

Readers of all ages will fall in love with Sidman’s beautiful poetic craft as she describes the way colors change and interact in each season.  The musicality of her word choice and vivid descriptions will resonate with readers, who will feel fully immersed in the speaker’s experience.  The language used in this poetry collection is accessible enough for young readers while still through-provoking, encouraging readers to use language in new ways.  After reading this collection, readers will see the world in new, fascinating ways.

Overall Quality

Each poem in this collection is clearly representative of Sidman’s literary quality.  Through her effortless yet skillful use of language, Sidman evokes not only sensory images but, more importantly, emotional connections.  While describing something ordinary like colors and seasons, the unfolding of the narrative is complex, demonstrating how each season and color is interwoven.  Sidman’s choice of free verse in these poems provides a natural flow that instead lets readers enjoy colors and seasons in every sense possible.

SPOTLIGHT POEM AND ACTIVITIES

Excerpt from “Green” by Joyce Sidman

Green is new

in spring. Shy.

Green peeks from buds,

trembles in the breeze.

Green floats through rain-dark trees,

and glows, mossy-soft, at my feet.

Green drips from tips of leaves

     onto Pup’ nose.

In spring,

even the rain tastes Green.

This poem is exemplary of Sidman’s best poetic skill. Here, she uses personification, imagery, metaphor, assonance, and synesthesia, all of which help create a beautiful picture of the titular color. This poem would serve as an excellent introduction to a unit on colors or even figurative language.

I would introduce this poem by having students think about a description of a color using senses other than sight.  In groups, students would randomly pick a color and create a list of ways to describe that color using the sense of smell, touch, taste, and sound. Students would then share their lists with the class. Afterwards, I would tell students that the poem “Green” by Joyce Sidman uses a variety of senses to describe the color green.

During my oral reading of the poem, I would stop to ask students what sense each image appeals to. I would then invite students to read the poem again with me, this time having them join in by reading the word “Green” each time it appears.

As an extension, I would have students model their own color poems after Sidman’s. I would also have students draw their own illustrations to accompany their poems and post these on a wall for a gallery walk.