Catch the Sky: Playful Poems on the Air We Share

This collection of 30 extraordinarily simple four-line poems will lift the imagination of readers, young and old, to wish they could, in fact, capture and pocket that illusive, majestic sky and everything nearby or in it.

Sunrise
Rosy, red arms
caress the sky,
smiling sun
waving HI!
Sunshine
Don’t catch its eye!
But hug its power.
Wrap up tight
on sun’s light shower.

The simplicity of the rhythmic words flows effortlessly from one element of nature to the next, almost always in awe of our world of beauty. Readers are shrewdly transported from the opening verse and encouraged to “Catch the sky, that we all share”. There is a reverence for the beauty of nature by both poet and illustrator as the day progresses and includes clouds, plants, animals, birds, trees, leaves, rain, honeybees, the clarity of seasons, activities and a myriad of features that readers might see in the sky and around them. Kites, balloons, fireworks, paragliders and helicopters are some of those items seen in the sky and enjoyed by a diversity of participants, celebrating all that the sky offers. Heidbreder’s poems may be playful and chock-full of rhyming and clever alliterations, but the admiration for our unique surroundings is echoed in Heidbreder’s expressive imagery. He describes, for example, a cloud as “a giant’s quilt for a giant to hide” and a Shooting Star that “Flashes fast as racing cars”. From dawn on the first few pages of this book, the poems take readers through a full day to nightfall where readers are finally wrapped up in a peaceful night sky, ready to carry them to a satisfying sleep.

Catch the Sky is handsomely illustrated in watercolour and ink, with expansive double-page spreads. Emily Dove’s art encourages young readers to appreciate the encompassing beauty of what they observe and gives them a glimpse of the diverse, multi-ethnic humans who are fortunate to inhabit the earth.

As many poetry books written for the young, Catch the Sky: Playful Poems on the Air We Share will benefit from being read aloud, emphasizing the rhythmic pattern.