The Dreams of Hummingbirds: Poems from Nature

By Mary Ann Coleman

Through this collection of 18 brief nature poems, the author hopes to inspire readers not to take nature for granted, but to "become caretakers of the earth". Beautiful full-color illustrations.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807517208
• ISBN13: 9780807517208
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Albert Whitman & Co
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.3" x 0.3" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 9 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 6

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

What can I say,this is just simply a beautiful collection of poems. Sometimes I go outside, read one and just sink into the loveliness of the wild around me. These poems just really are beautiful. Lots of great imagery in the writing such that you can almost hear and smell the images the writer is conveying. Very well done. The last poem is about Hummingbirds the rest are about other animals/aspects of nature. Highly recommended

for the sheer beauty of it

From The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books:With this graceful book, Coleman and Masheris offer children the best reason to cherish both nature and poetry--for the sheer beauty of it. Coleman's twenty-one poems open with an invitation."Bicycle TripA poemis like an unplanned trip by bicycle. The wind of Words blows in your ears.Jack-in-the-pulpits. Lady Slippers become the handlebars.You begin to understand fireplugs shining in the sun, the wild toss of bachelor buttons. The limits of the street change, shrink--two lane highways, a country road.Then with an unexpected lurch thought turns into a side dirt pathwhere stones and pine straw lie and hickories grow, shaggy and gray. A lake opens, a mountain roars.Surprised, you're part of the landscape. The movement of short lines to long reflects an gradually widening view, both visually and imaginatively, and the illustration that envelopes the poem also extends it across the page into a delicately tinted jungle if wildflowers. Various animals, plants, and habitats figure in the poems and pictures that follow, all bearing a close complementary relationship to one another and to the reader. This is a book that poetry buffs will want to linger over and that readers new to poetry will find alluring.

Ashley Miller's Review

This collection of poems by Mary Ann Coleman is wonderful. She has a special way of making the simplest detail in nature awe-inspiring. The illustrations are stunning! I highly recommend it to children and adults alike.

Kids Speak about "The Dreams of Hummingbirds"

Excerpts from letters by two children in fourth grade to the author:"I loved your book. It was the best. I liked then all but I think my favorite would have to be: Lifting a Strawberry from a Bowl of Fruit. I think my 2nd favorite would be: Sea Poems. Me and Rachel had a blast reading your book. We had a lot of fun picking out our favorite poemes. We realy injoyed your book. I do not see how you wrote such good poems. I never could write such good poems. I loved your book so much!Love,Mary Kate"and"I really enjoyed the book "The Dreams of Hummingbirds." I really like to read poems, and your book had great poems....I have read it a lot. Mary-Kate and I took turns reading it and then we read it in the car. I really liked the poem "If I Were A Hawk." Your book was really good and you did a good job in writing it. Sincerely, Rachel Wilkins"