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...
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241253588
Number of pages: 128
Weight: 1465 g
Dimensions: 378 x 280 x 15 mm
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
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
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 - The Observer
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
One of the publishing sensations of recent times is The Lost Words - Daily Mail
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
Gilded and glorious, Jackie Morris's paintings illustrate Robert Macfarlane's acrostic poems in The Lost Words, one of the years loveliest books for all ages over 10 - The Sunday Times
Rapturously received celebration of nature - The New Statesman
Macfarlane is a changemaker... he has made nature-writing populis6t and big-selling. Morris's paintings are beautiful - at once familiar and other. A contender for book of the year - The Big Issue
Publisher's description. An illustrated spell-book in watercolour and gold leaf, from the rich creative minds of award-winning author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist Jackie Morris. As nature vanishes from children's language and their imagination, The Lost Words stands against the loss of magic, celebrating the joy of wild childhood and wild places. - Penguin
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
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
But the poetry was very disappointing and only detracted from the beauty of the illustrations.
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