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The story unfolds beautifully and tells a story with a moral so gentely that one doesn't feel like a moral has just been taught. He then adds a thought at the end that the niece should also plant flowers. Lovely nature book and wonderful nature book for children showing human encounters and interatction with nature. More like a story in which a certain ethic is lived and demonstrated through the story. Just shows that by making our surroundings more beautful we bennifit ourselves and others. Illustrations are an equal component to the loveliness of the book. Maybe moral isn't the word. At 3 he is too young to realize that there are so many other ways to make the world beautiful but we talk about it and the flowers are a concrete visual that helps him remember this lesson.
During reading time, my son is usually still active, climbing furniture(literally) or otherwise messing around. But, as I read this book, he usually comes to my chair, stands still and ends the story in my lap, facinated. Demonstrates great stewardship of nature by humans.It is not overly preachy and, although it uses flowers to make the world beautiful, it is not feel like a environmental book or an earth type book, that our lives should be subserviant to the earth's needs, nor does it make any references to "mother earth" etc. Lovely book and lovely story.
This is a beautiful and well written book that I highly recommend to all parents of young children. The idea that a single person can make the world a better place by the simple act of planting seeds, resonates with all of us and illustrates the idea that one person truly can make a positive impact on the world. I read this book to my granddaughter's kindergarten class. They enjoyed it so much that I then bought the book for every child in the class to take home.
Halfway through, she took the book, closed it, and said, "Let's save this for later," and pulled another book from the stack for me to read."Miss Rumphius" is unlike other children's books in that the story is really several levels above the average child's intelligence. She planted more, and more grew up. I read it--or tried to read it--to my five-year-old great-niece. This is such an esoteric book, who would think it suitable for children. Sometimes these Caldecott gold medal winners are quite a puzzle. Oh yes, Miss Rumphius, you are so deserving of the Caldecott. So she traveled, but still had not figured out how to make the world more beautiful.One day she discovered that the seeds of the lupines she had planted had come up. He taught her two things: her desire to travel the world because her grandfather did, and to "do something to make the world more beautiful." Any such commands from beloved grandparents must surely be met.
The next spring lupines came up everywhere.The last thing she did was to advise her great-niece, narrator of this story, to "make the world more beautiful," just as she had been told all those many years earlier. You see, "Miss Rumphius" is about character development, maturity, beauty, exotic travel, experience--things a child is typically not asked to understand. Take "Miss Rumphius," for example. Then she decided to sow her five bushels of lupine seeds everywhere. Calling for adult understanding and reaction, this Caldecott must have appealed to the judges, as it did to me. Bottom line: The child who can "read" the message is a special child indeed and will "suck out the marrow" of life in his/her time as did Miss Rumphius.Miss Rumphius lives near the sea where her foreign-born grandfather settled. History has a way of repeating itself, especially if it has a solid lesson behind it.The narrator, by bringing her friends to listen to her aunt's (Miss Rumphius) stories (just as Miss Rumphius did all those years before), then picking flowers to take home, and spreading seed in new and wilder places, is repeating history. I just hope all readers--no matter their age--appreciate you.
I had this book when I was a child, and it inspired me to travel the world and to somehow make it a better place. I recently purchased it to relive my memories, and it continues to excite and inspire me.
Having been a big fan of Barbara Cooney's illustrations in the Ox Cart Man, I was excited to buy this book to share with my children, and it did not disappoint. The pictures are beautiful, and the story has a wonderful message to share with children: do something in your life to make the world more beautiful. It would make a great story to share in an elementary school classroom, or with your own children or grandchildren.
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