Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | Lyon | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Dazzled,
a little girl listens
to her old neighbor's story
of following a falling star
when he was a boy.
He found it, too.
He put it in her hands.
But that's not all
the starfinder has to tell.
One day something
found him.
It's a story
too good to keep.
See for yourself.
Author Notes
George Ella Lyon was born on April 25, 1949, in Harlan, Kentucky. She is an author who has published in many genre, including picture books, poetry, juvenile novels and articles. Her books often take place in Appalachia. She earned her B.A. at Centre College in Kentucky in 1971, her M.A. at the University of Arkansas in 1972 and her PhD at Indiana University - Bloomington in 1978.
She first published in 1983, a poetry collection called Mountain. Aside from publishing, she also taught writing at a number of colleges, including the University of Kentucky, Centre College, Transylvania University, and Radford University. She has also acted as an executive committee member for the Women Writers Conference. She has also taught writing through workshops, conferences, and author visits.
Her titles include Father Time and the Day Boxes, Sonny's House of Spies, Holding on to Zoe, All the Water in the World, With a Hammer for My Heart, and Where I'm From: Where Poems Come From. In 2014 her title Voices from the March on Washington made the Hot Civil Rights Titles List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-A story told in evocative free verse and graced with exuberant watercolors. A girl begins her narration when she was "no bigger than you are." She describes an old man who sits "in an old chair/on an old green porch" and tells tales of the time he found a falling star, and when he went for a walk and wound up at the end of the rainbow. The child feels certain that the outlandish stories must all be true. Where the text is restrained, the illustrations fairly holler with light and joy. During each of the Starfinder's stories, the palette begins with hushed expectation in black and white, gradually adding colors until the whole page is glowing. This is not to belie the power of Lyon's spare text-it is only in the tension between the carefully chosen words and vivid pictures that the stories' magic emerges. A lovely collaboration.-Rachael Vilmar, Eastern Shore Regional Library, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Stories and the people who tell them form one of the main themes of much of Lyon's poetic work, and this sumptuously illustrated book, perhaps Gammell's finest, is no exception. The narrator begins conversationally, "Once there was a old man./ I knew him/ when I was no bigger than you are." Working in his distinctive style, Gammell (previously paired with Lyon for Come a Tide) spatters a universe of colors across the page as the child dances with the man, who tells stories on his green porch. "For starters," the girl says, "he told me once/ he saw a star falling." The color illustrations give way to black-and-white paintings that convey an astonishing degree of light. The illustrations morph back into full color as the old man puts the star in the girl's hands-"glassy, blackish green/ like puddles around a coal pile." Lyon never lets readers forget that this is a story they are reading: "Now he couldn't bring home/ the rainbow/ the way he did the star./ But when he told the story/ holding out his hand/ I could feel the colors./ I could see it was true./ And how he would have to tell it/ just like I'm telling you." Text and art are sure to evoke wonder in young readers. Ages 4-7. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) In this whimsical story, the narrator remembers an elderly neighbor from her childhood and recounts two of the many stories he told, of which she says, "The stranger they were, the truer he looked." The first story tells how, as a boy, he once followed a star as it fell from the sky, and picked it up, "warm and smooth as an egg straight from the hen"; the narrator holds the "glassy, blackish green" meteorite, "trying to feel its journey." The second tale explains his purple hand in a lyrical passage about coming upon the end of a rainbow, "color pouring over him." Though poetic, Lyon's words are spare, never florid, for an elegantly powerful effect with silence built in, allowing readers space to use their own imaginations. Gammell's art begins with exuberant shades, but when the story enters the past, the pictures are as gray as Dorothy's Kansas until the boy finds the star, its fluorescent yellow lighting up his face. The rainbow then spectacularly spills its colors over the boy, and the book closes with the little girl and the Starfinder looking out at the universe, filled with colorful planets and golden light. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Lyon and Gammell, the duo responsible for the memorable Come a Tide (1990), take on more feats of nature as a girl listens to a neighbor tell how, when he was a boy, he met up with a star and rainbow. Using his signature color washes for the parts of the story set in the present, Gammell moves to shades of gray when the story goes back in time. When the boy spots a star shooting across the sky, he follows it. He picks up the rock, which glints with gold, and keeps it until, as an adult, he gives it to the girl. Another time, the boy, lifted into the sky, starts turning colors purple, red, green, yellow; he's at the end of a rainbow. He can't bring the rainbow home, of course, but he can tell the story. Lyon's prose is lyrical as always ( cool / warm / striped / air ), though why she describes the comet as smooth as an egg (it is jagged in the picture) is unclear. Gammell's energetic art, a mix of precise lines and hue-soaked swirls and shapes, captures both the everyday and the otherworldiness of the story. That said, some odd choices have been made here. By never showing the Starfinder's adult face, the character seems strange, even menacing. Then there's the abrupt ending, though an afterword helps finish the story. Despite the picture-book format, this isn't for preschoolers, and even older children, who may be drawn by the dreamy premise played out in the evocative art, may be confused by the goings-on.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2008 Booklist