Ted Kooser was the Pulitzer Prize-winning US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. The author of twelve full-length volumes of poetry and several non-fiction works, as well as contributor to many periodicals, he lives in Nebraska. Jon Klassen is the author/illustrator of I Want My Hat Back and an animation artist. His projects include design work for Dreamworks Feature Animation as well as Laika Studios on their feature film Coraline. Other work includes lead designs for a BBC spot used in their coverage of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, which won a 2010 BAFTA award. Jon Klassen grew up in Ontario, Canada, and now lives in Los Angeles, California.
The former poet laureate Ted Kooser’s HOUSE HELD UP BY TREES is a
lyric, poetic story, stark but also imbued with a haunting
beauty…Jon Klassen’s illustrations are quiet, delicate and nuanced,
amplifying the text in fresh, original ways through the use of
unexpected angles and perspective.
—The New York Times
Though there’s a family involved, the real star of this
multilayered modern parable is a plot of land...the artwork
initially functions as stoic background for the story, with
wide-angle perspectives filled with plenty of open space and muted
colors. But in the second part, as the trees take over, Klassen’s
compositions command more and more attention, elbowing the text
into the periphery and subtly reinforcing the themes in play...
Unfolding with uncommon grace, the environmental heart of this
story is revealed obliquely but powerfully.
—Booklist (starred review)
Poignant and lovely.
—Kirkus Reviews
This bittersweet tale is rife with tension, between young and old,
order and chaos, yesterday and tomorrow. Poet Kooser’s soft, plain
narrative matches that tension, at once frank and nostalgic.
Klassen’s somber, dappled watercolors add to it, juxtaposing the
house’s rectilinear form against nature’s organic shapes... This
quiet elegy to the passage of time offers some simple and profound
musings to contemplative young readers curious about the future and
their role in it.
—The Horn Book
A lyrical, melancholy prose text by former U.S. poet laureate
Kooser is paired with ethereal illustrations to tell the story of a
house and the family who once lived there.
—School Library Journal
Poet Laureate emeritus Kooser writes with quiet particularity, and
his descriptive prose is filled with the rustle of wind through the
trees. Klassen’s art is simply beautiful, the leafy trees making a
lacy pattern against the walls of the house, strong verticals of
trees delicately textured by slender grasses and pale dotty
imprints of leaflets...
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Readers will contend with the power of the natural world in this
lyrical picture book, in which trees take over an abandoned
house.
—Instructor
With ethereal, haunting illustrations by Jon Klassen, this
memorable biography of a house will appeal to both young readers
and adults.
—The Seattle Times
It is the kind of book that can be read again and again as it will
inspire new conversation and discussion with each reading.
—7online.com (WABC-TV)
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