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Puffin is an imprint of Penguin Random House, the world’s number-one publisher representing a vibrant community of publishing houses marked by unparalleled success. Through our world of stories, Puffin aims to open up the world to every child. Our mission is to inspire children to feel they can be and do anything, and to create readers for life. As with The Lost Words, the publishers of The Lost Spells have commissioned Eva John to create an 'Explorers' Guides', but this time the guide has been designed to follow the seasons, and updatededitions will be made available as the year progresses. A proportion of proceeds from each copy of The Lost Words is being given to one such organisation, Action for Conservation. Enchanting literally means "to put under a spell." Now I'm sure you can see why I think "The Lost SPELLS" is utterly enchanting!
In London, The Big Green Bookshop took only four days to raise enough funds to donate a book to the primary schools in the London Borough of Haringey. As some of you may know, I'm an illustrator myself, and one of my favorite things to illustrate is wildlife, nature and landscapes.
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And so the re-wilding begins from a grass roots level as readers aspire to bring this book into the hands of our primary school children – with the aim of re-igniting their relationship with their environment. Only a year after publication, the book had won two literary prizes and been translated into several languages. To wish for the restoration of this ‘positive connection’ is not to lament a “lost golden age”, says Macfarlane, or to favour nature to the exclusion of technology, “rather it is to engage with much broader inequalities within society, and to seek to increase both what is good for nature and what is good for children.”
Asked whether there was an environmental message in The Lost Spells, Morris said: “It’s a celebration of the nearby wild. If there is a message there, it is simply wonder and awe at the beautiful complexity of the non-human. And respect, for the wisdom of trees, the shape of a bird, the wild of the fox.” There is beautiful puppetry designed by Amber Donovan Kahn and lovely visual abstractions in Hannah Sibai’s set including artfully fluttering ocean waves and a giant luminous globe which looks like an oversized pop-up of Morris’s illustration in the book.TheFolk by the Oak festival team, proud commissioners of Spell Songs, were thrilled with the release of this wonderfully inventive, dazzlingly beautiful bookand the opportunity to create new music with the Spell Songs Ensemble! ROBERT MACFARLANE is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the author of a number of bestselling and prize-winning books, including The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Holloway, Landmarks, and Underland, which won the Wainwright Prize. His work has been translated into many languages and widely adapted for film, television, and radio. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E. M. Forster Award for Literature in 2017. He is a word collector and mountain climber -- and he has three children who have taught him more about the world than any book.
Something special happened in my mind and heart when he read out his spells. It was hearing the combination of the beauty of wildlife and the lyricism or melody of each word, that set my mind on fire in a sense! That's when I knew my first Robert Macfarlane book had to be the lost spells! Wonderful activities and ideas celebrating the magic of nature and language which can be used standalone or consecutively as a cross-curricular scheme of work in English, Science, Art, PSHE and to support research skills. Each section takes one of the animals or items from nature featured in each spell, and invites children to Seek, Find, Speak, Write and/or Create their response with extracts and illustrations from the book to support and inspire learning:
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Puffin started out as a non-fiction publisher, with its first title appearing in 1940. As the most iconic and well-known children’s book brand in the UK today, we are always on the lookout for innovative ways to tell the world’s favourite stories and for brilliant new debut talent and brands that connect with today’s young readers, from newborn up to twelve years old. Since the Lost Words’ publication in October 2017, this book has had a transformative effect on all who have encountered it, not least the Folk by the Oak festival team who were inspired to conceive and commission Spell Songs. The love of and for nature that Macfarlane and Morris are feeling is palpable - and infectuous. I also found myself learning the odd thing or two while reading their books. A major work for children’s choir and orchestra has been co-commissioned from composer James Burton by the Boston Symphony (USA) and Hallé Orchestra (Manchester, UK) for premiere performances in 2019 (Boston) and 2020 (Hallé). Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.
The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words - among them "acorn", "bluebell", "kingfisher" and "wren" - from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory." Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed' Dara McAnulty The Lost Spells is a celebration of the natural; it is a collection of prose poetry about foxes and trees and birds and rabbits and flowers: it is an elegy to what we are losing and what we must try to retain. A timeless, stunning gift to be pored over and cherished for years - dazzlingly beautiful and richly inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of The Lost Words The relationship between naming, knowing and nature has long interested Macfarlane. The Lost Words grew out of research for his book Landmarks (2015), which examined the work of a dozen British and American writers of place, and gathered and organised over 2,000 terms for nature, landscape, creatures and weather from more than 30 languages, dialects and sub-dialects of Britain and Ireland. The book ended with a chapter called ‘Childish’, about the relationship of childhood and nature.
As well as inspiring Spell Songs, The Lost Words is the Springboard for a number of other companion pieces. A group of young classical composers in New York, led by Aawa White, are working withthematerial to produce a series of new compositions and performances in North America. The book has taken on a 'wild life' of its own with the sparks of inspiration taking it in numerous creative directions. And as if the book couldn't get any better, it is filled with the most stunning watercolor illustrations of all the beautiful wildlife Robert Macfarlane is writing about!
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