Sublime. When we ask ourselves to imagine the Big Bang that began our galaxy and the immense stretch of celestial bodies that make of the universe, it can seem like an impossible picture to conjure. It's such an enormous concept, place and possibility. You want to see it through a lens that would honor the incredible power and gorgeous intensity of it all. Lucky for us, Ekua Holmes was asked to do the imagining for us.
Her capacity for imagining something invisible was already brought to our attention in the illustrations she did for Out of Wonder by Kwame Alexander. In that book she was able to match the energy and the spirit of each poet with an image that matched some unseen power they hold...possibly she saw or felt their auras.
In The Stuff of Stars Ekua Holmes powered up her inner ear and listened ever so carefully to the gorgeous words of Marion Dane Bauer. The two of them delivered the mystery, the breadth of time, the enormity of a universe and then brought it all down as though they soared from a place so far, far away and landed us in one moment with a focus on one living being... a new baby.
This is sumptuous and magnificent. Every new baby no matter where in our universe he/she/they arrive should be so lucky as to be celebrated in this most astonishing book which is ultimately about the most powerful force we know..... love.
40 pages 978-0763678838 Ages 4-8
Editor's note: Great new baby gift!
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
*************** In an astonishing unfurling of our universe, Newbery Honor winner Marion Dane Bauer and Caldecott Honor winner Ekua Holmes celebrate the birth of every child.
Before the universe was formed, before time and space existed, there was . . . nothing. But then . . . BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they exploded, flinging stardust everywhere. And the ash of those stars turned into planets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poetic text, Marion Dane Bauer takes readers from the trillionth of a second when our universe was born to the singularities that became each one of us, while vivid illustrations by Ekua Holmes capture the void before the Big Bang and the ensuing life that burst across galaxies. A seamless blend of science and art, this picture book reveals the composition of our world and beyond — and how we are all the stuff of stars.--from the publisher
