Posted: July 2, 2021
When I wrote my recent children’s fiction picture book, If I Were a Tree, What Would I Be?, I drew on experiences I’d had over several years with many different trees. The book tells about two children who love trees. They can hear them with their hearts. They make friends with a cottonwood. The tree
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Category: Blog
Tags: bend, changes, children, communicating, connect, cooperation, difficulties, fiction, flow, friends, hearts, hope, moving, picture book, trees
Posted: June 16, 2021
A tall juniper tree in my front yard lends its shade to the hollyhock plant that grows near it. The shade keeps the hollyhock from getting too much sun. Plants, like people, enjoy the sun. But many plants also sometimes need shade so they don’t get too hot. We’re that way too. It’s fun to
Posted: June 1, 2021
This week, my dog, Peanut, found great pleasure in chasing a toad. The traumatized toad tried to hide in a large mum beside the house. Peanut circled the mum, making sounds between a bark and an excited whimper. Unfortunately, the mum took a beating. The toad found other shelter in a coiled up hose. Peanut
Posted: May 5, 2021
Have you ever noticed how many different colors there are in your own front and back yards? There are lots of them! Sometimes the colors are different shades of pink or blue or purple. We don’t have names for all the different shades of yellow, red, or green. If somebody tried to make up names
Posted: April 21, 2021
When author Brooke Smith discovered several years ago that the Oxford Junior Dictionary was planning to remove over 100 words related to nature from its pages, she became angry, disillusioned and sad. The dictionary editors didn’t think the words had relevance for children of today. They were words like apricot, lavender and porcupine. I can
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Category: Blog
Tags: American Library Association, apricot, dictionary, granddaughter, grandmother, lavender, lost words, nature, porcupine, relevant, squash bugs, squash plants, The Keeper of Wild Words
Posted: March 31, 2021
Do you have a tree in your yard that you really like? If you do, it might be fun to plant a few flowers near it to make your own little garden. Gardens, even small ones with just a few flowers near a tree, can help people feel calmer and more relaxed. Notice how you
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Category: Blog
Tags: dig, flowers, garden, garden soil, plant a flower garden, potted, potting mix, seed package, spade, sprout, water
Posted: March 17, 2021
Have you ever enjoyed being around a tree so much that you spent a lot of time visiting it? If you have, you’re not alone. A professor in England wanted so much to learn more about an 800-year-old Honywood Oak that he spent two years visiting it. He went at many different times of the
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Category: Blog
Tags: acorns, ancient oak, calm, Harper One, James Canton, nature, peace, The Oak Papers, treecreeper, treehugger.com
Posted: March 4, 2021
Have you ever had one of those days when nothing went right? Your sister, brother or friend acted upset or even a little mean. Your mom or dad didn’t have time to listen to you tell them something important. For a reason you couldn’t grasp, you felt sad or out of sorts. We’ve all had
Posted: February 17, 2021
Recent snowy weather has blanketed trees with snow. I used to worry that snow was too heavy for branches to handle. Though every once in a long while very heavy snow has made it challenging for tree branches to hold up the snow without cracking or breaking, that doesn’t happen very often. Normally, trees can
Posted: January 21, 2021
On this day, January 20, 2021, we witnessed the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr. as the 46th president of the United States of America. We also witnessed the youngest inaugural poet read her poem commemorating the day and its place in history. Her name is Amanda Gorman. She is 22 years old and a
Continue Reading “Youth Inspires Us during the Inauguration”
Category: Blog
Tags: Amanda Gorman, child, harmony, healing, inaugural poet, Inauguration, Joseph R. Biden Jr, peace, prevail, worth, young person
