PPBF-The Root Children

I keep forgetting to do this on Friday! Here's my addition to the wonderful brainchild of Susanna Leonard Hill, Perfect Picture Book Friday. I have studied many different educational methods. One that I use bits and pieces of quite a bit is Waldorf. It is gentle and imaginative. I'll get a simple idea like just letting children use three colors to create a picture and it will take off. When you give children simple guidelines, they can be more free with their thinking. One book that I love to use when introducing Spring is The Story of The Root Children written by Sibylle Von Olfers in 1906.

Title: The Story of The Root Children

Author & Illustrator: Sibylle von Olfers

Publisher: Floris Books, 1990

Intended Audience: Ages 3-7

Genre: Fiction

Topic / Theme: Spring, Mother Nature, Flowers

Brief Synopsis (from www.steinerbooks.org): "This is a classic story of the changing seasons. The root children spend the winter asleep. When spring comes, they wake, sew themselves new gowns, and clean and paint the beetles and bugs. All summer they play in fields, ponds and meadows before returning in the autumn to Mother Earth, who welcomes them home and puts them to bed once more."

Opening: Under the ground, deep in the earth among the roots of the trees, the little root-children were fast asleep all winter long.

Why I Like This Book: This is a sweet story of how flowers come up from the ground. It helps children think about creating their own stories about the miracles we see all around us. The language is old fashioned and lovely. “There too old father Sliffslaff-Slibberslak came slowly creeping along.” This is about a snail and the children never forget it. They love to feel the sounds his name makes as it rolls in their mouth.

Activities/Resources:

1) This book really lends itself to the art of Storytelling. Story Arts is a great resource for this.

2) This would also work well with teaching about myths. Myths, Folktales and Fairy Tales.

3) I like to share famous pictures of mythical creatures and let the children write a story from what they see. Then I put the painting in the middle of a bulletin board and have the stories all around it. It really shows children how our own experiences and perspectives change how we see the same thing. See The Hunt of the Unicorn below. The original is at the Cloisters in NY.