Description: The pure and simple delight of children playing outside is captured in needle-felted wool paintings. The picture book pairs dreamy images of multicultural children, animals, flowers, and trees with verse that express the joy young children experience in nature's seasons.
Brief description: Claudia Marie Lenart is a fiber artist from northern Illinois.artist from northern Illinois. She experimented in the arts and handwork since childhood and while working as a journalist. While her son was in Waldorf school, she discovered needle felting and found her true passion. Her soft sculpture characters are created by repeatedly poking wool and other natural fibers, like alpaca, with a barbed needle. Claudia pioneered a distinct style of illustrating books using wool as the medium. She illustrated three books for the late children's author Jewel Kats. Claudia is a nature enthusiast and spent three summers working in national parks out west as a young adult. Daily walks in the woods with her dog inspire her wool paintings and wildlife sculptures. To see her work, visitwww.claudiamariefelt.comlike alpaca, with a barbed needle. Claudia pioneered a distinct style of illustrating books using wool as the medium. She illustrated three books for the late children's author Jewel Kats. Claudia is a nature enthusiast and spent three summers working in national parks out west as a young adult. Daily walks in the woods with her dog inspire her wool paintings and wildlife sculptures. To see her work, visitwww.claudiamariefelt.com
Review Quotes:
"Young children learn through imitation and movement. If that movement is filled with imaginative pictures, they are able to take it up in their whole being and express it outwardly in their play. Claudia Lenart's book Seasons of Joy uses the artistic medium of needle-felted wool to express the joy of children in movement at every season of the year."
--Barbara Patterson, retired Waldorf Extra Lesson teacher in private practice, author of Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Nurturing Our Children from Birth to Seven
"In Seasons of Joy, Claudia Lenart uses her beautiful rhyming prose to tell a classic tale of the changing of the seasons and the carefree pleasure of playing outside all year around. The details in every scene are meticulous and refined, down to the distinct wing pattern of a butterfly and the catchlight in a squirrel's eye. This book is exactly what it sets out to be - a joy to read and an inspiration for nature play for children everywhere."
--Linda Åkeson McGurk, journalist, blogger at Rain or Shine Mama, author of There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather
"What a treat to meander through the seasons with these wonderful words and beautiful wool paintings. Claudia is an extraordinary fiber artist who has the special talent of bringing magical scenes to life. A delight for adults and children alike."
-- Donni Webber, www.TheMagicOnions.com, author of Magical Miniature Gardens and Homes
Seasons of Joy is a beautifully illustrated narrative poem celebrating children's joy in the changing seasons. The author of the delicate poetic narrative is a celebrated fiber artist who creates a tapestry of lively figures, children, animals, forests, and lakes, using felted wool and other fibers needle poked into a lifelike sculpture of fantastic animals, flowers, figures and scenes. The textures of her fiber canvas are palable and very lifelike. Her poetry is no less inspiring: "In Spring, we picnic in velvet green meadows, /We pretend to be queens, kings, heroes./ The meadow is an emerald sea filled with pirates./ Our day is long;, the world is fresh and beautiful./ We can dream anything." Young readers will be delighted and intrigued by the poetic descriptions and the amazing artworks, which inspire imaginative nature play for everyone. Aimed at an audience aged 3-5 years, Seasons of Joy is a literary and artistic treasure for today's children and future generations.
-- James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review