Space Songs

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

On pages black as the night sky, Fisher and Livingston explore the meteors, satellites, messages and planets, of that ``other world, an otherwhere'' that is called space. As in their past collaborations (Sky Songs, Sea Songs, Earth Songs) the poems and paintings in this volume shimmer and dance. Fisher's stars ``pinwheel the Milky Way,'' and his Uranus is ``a ball of jade.'' Livingston's visual poetry spills like a meteorite to the ground or curves like the edge of the sun. She deftly combines fact with vivid metaphors: comets ``journey to see the sun/ whose searing burn/ swells them with gas/ as on they race/ streaming their blowing, sunlit hair.'' These poems and paintings are extraordinary, not only because of their depth of vision and beauty, but because they entreat the reader to explore the secrets that space keeps hidden: ``Space is silent./ It seldom answers./ But we ask.'' Ages 6-9. (April)

Children's Literature - Judith Gravitz

Livingston's poetry is visual. It provides a heavenly portrait of space and its cosmic offerings. The cosmic energy of Fisher's double-page paintings captivates-a bold image on the left-hand side leads our eye to the poem on the right-hand side. The poem "Meteorites" is set on the page looking like a meteor careening towards earth. Readers are forced to either tilt their heads or the book to read the lines that lie diagonally across the page. The final line of the poem rests horizontally as a meteorite would on earth. The black pages with white type enlighten this dazzling collection of poems. 1993 (reissue of

School Library Journal

Gr 4 Up With Space Songs, Livingston and Fisher complete the quartet they began with Sky Songs (1984), Sea Songs (1986), and Earth Songs (1986, all Holiday). As in the others, Fisher's paintings are incredibly powerful. Each of Livingston's 13 poems is set in a painting that perfectly captures the essence of the subject, but the pairing does not create perfect harmony. The poems fail to illumine space as well as the illustrations do. Fisher's abstract milky way is paired with the rather pedestrian image of ``Two hundred billion stars move here in teeming crowds/ Here is the Milky Way, our galaxy, our dusky road in sky.'' ``Meteorites'' takes the form of a concrete poem but, once again, the words ``Earthlings may watch a meteor's blazing trail of light'' are weaker than the acryllic depiction of falling stars. Livingston's scientific facts are sound, but her space does not sing. All of the lyrics are in the illustrations. Kathleen Whalin, Public Library of Columbus and Franklin County, Reynoldsburg, Ohio