Published: 05/10/2017
A soaring visual hymn to the vanishing poetry of the countryside. Breathtakingly beautiful in its design and production, this really is a book to treasure forever.
Shortlisted for the British Book Awards 30 from 30 Award 2020
Winner of the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year 2018
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2017
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2018
Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2019
Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children.
They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no one noticed - until one day, they were gone.
But there is an old kind of magic for finding what is missing, and for summoning what has vanished. If the right spells are spoken, the lost words might return...
Robert Macfarlane
The Lost Words is a very special illustrated collection of spell-poems to re-wild the language of children. All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world - Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children's minds.
Assembled in acrostic spell-poems by the peerless wordsmith that is Robert Macfarlane and illuminated by Jackie Morris’ unparalleled skill in rendering the natural world, The Lost Words is a volume to be treasured forever. The book – standing some two feet high and over 130 pages – will almost be as monumental as the world it describes, a fitting thing of beauty to arrest the decline of a language and experience that are both so quickly fading away.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241253588
Number of pages: 128
Weight: 1461 g
Dimensions: 376 x 278 x 17 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Sumptuously illustrated... the poems or nature summoning spells are indebted to Gerard Manley Hopkins with rich alliteration, word-play and compound adjectives [and] the illustrations make plants and creatures luminous against backgrounds of gold leaf.' - The Sunday Times
'Sumptuous...a book combining meticulous wordcraft with exquisite illustrations deftly restores language describing the natural world to the children's lexicon... The Lost Words is a beautiful book and an important one.' - Observer
'One of the most striking and poignant picture books of the season...this giant tome contains not only beautiful illustrations but a haunting series of poems that read like a summoning back of the wild...a book in which every page seems like an act of love.' - Herald
'A breathtaking book... Jackie Morris has created something that you could spend all day looking at... This is the kind of complexity that can enthral a child as much as an adult... Refreshingly accessible, slightly magical.' - New Statesman
'My top book of the year... It is one of those children's books for ages up to 99 years. The lost words are those my generation and earlier ones used every day and which are fast disappearing, and Macfarlane's aim is to resurrect the everyday glories of our language. May he succeed.' - Susan Hill
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“A spellbinding feast for the ears and the eyes”
A spellbinding piece of publishing which is a feast for both the ears and the eyes. A beautiful book which should be poured over, treasured and read aloud when ever the opportunity arises. Robert's words and... More
“A magical book in so many ways”
This is a beautiful and magical book. The 'spells' and the pictures are simply gorgeous. The idea behind it (to encourage the naming of things in nature so that we value them) is heartfelt. And it is... More
“Beautiful illustrations ”
But the poetry was very disappointing and only detracted from the beauty of the illustrations.
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