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As some of you may know, I'm an illustrator myself, and one of my favorite things to illustrate is wildlife, nature and landscapes. ROBERT MACFARLANE is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the author of a number of bestselling and prize-winning books, including The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Holloway, Landmarks, and Underland, which won the Wainwright Prize. His work has been translated into many languages and widely adapted for film, television, and radio. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E. M. Forster Award for Literature in 2017. He is a word collector and mountain climber -- and he has three children who have taught him more about the world than any book.
Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge. As with The Lost Words, the publishers of The Lost Spells have commissioned Eva John to create an 'Explorers' Guides', but this time the guide has been designed to follow the seasons, and updatededitions will be made available as the year progresses. The relationship between naming, knowing and nature has long interested Macfarlane. The Lost Words grew out of research for his book Landmarks (2015), which examined the work of a dozen British and American writers of place, and gathered and organised over 2,000 terms for nature, landscape, creatures and weather from more than 30 languages, dialects and sub-dialects of Britain and Ireland. The book ended with a chapter called ‘Childish’, about the relationship of childhood and nature.A major work for children’s choir and orchestra has been co-commissioned from composer James Burton by the Boston Symphony (USA) and Hallé Orchestra (Manchester, UK) for premiere performances in 2019 (Boston) and 2020 (Hallé). In London, The Big Green Bookshop took only four days to raise enough funds to donate a book to the primary schools in the London Borough of Haringey. Wonderful activities and ideas celebrating the magic of nature and language which can be used standalone or consecutively as a cross-curricular scheme of work in English, Science, Art, PSHE and to support research skills. Each section takes one of the animals or items from nature featured in each spell, and invites children to Seek, Find, Speak, Write and/or Create their response with extracts and illustrations from the book to support and inspire learning:
A proportion of proceeds from each copy of The Lost Words is being given to one such organisation, Action for Conservation. The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words - among them "acorn", "bluebell", "kingfisher" and "wren" - from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory." A book about spells that succeeds in being spell-binding in its own right . . . It already feels like a true classic. Buy one copy for yourself and any others for as many children as you can afford' Books for Keeps Asked whether there was an environmental message in The Lost Spells, Morris said: “It’s a celebration of the nearby wild. If there is a message there, it is simply wonder and awe at the beautiful complexity of the non-human. And respect, for the wisdom of trees, the shape of a bird, the wild of the fox.” A timeless, stunning gift to be pored over and cherished for years - dazzlingly beautiful and richly inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of The Lost WordsWhat we might call the ‘nature of childhood’ has changed dramatically in Britain over recent decades,” says Macfarlane, a Reader in Environmental Humanities in Cambridge University's Faculty of English. TheFolk by the Oak festival team, proud commissioners of Spell Songs, were thrilled with the release of this wonderfully inventive, dazzlingly beautiful bookand the opportunity to create new music with the Spell Songs Ensemble! For me, personally, that book was beautiful but too large (impractical) and seeing this new collaboration, I probably wasn't the only one. The group have announced they will turn The Lost Spells into another album and they hope to tour the new music next year.
And as if the book couldn't get any better, it is filled with the most stunning watercolor illustrations of all the beautiful wildlife Robert Macfarlane is writing about! Puffin started out as a non-fiction publisher, with its first title appearing in 1940. As the most iconic and well-known children’s book brand in the UK today, we are always on the lookout for innovative ways to tell the world’s favourite stories and for brilliant new debut talent and brands that connect with today’s young readers, from newborn up to twelve years old. Puffin is an imprint of Penguin Random House, the world’s number-one publisher representing a vibrant community of publishing houses marked by unparalleled success. Through our world of stories, Puffin aims to open up the world to every child. Our mission is to inspire children to feel they can be and do anything, and to create readers for life. Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed' Dara McAnulty There is beautiful puppetry designed by Amber Donovan Kahn and lovely visual abstractions in Hannah Sibai’s set including artfully fluttering ocean waves and a giant luminous globe which looks like an oversized pop-up of Morris’s illustration in the book.
FAQs
Something special happened in my mind and heart when he read out his spells. It was hearing the combination of the beauty of wildlife and the lyricism or melody of each word, that set my mind on fire in a sense! That's when I knew my first Robert Macfarlane book had to be the lost spells! The Lost Spells is a celebration of the natural; it is a collection of prose poetry about foxes and trees and birds and rabbits and flowers: it is an elegy to what we are losing and what we must try to retain.
And so the re-wilding begins from a grass roots level as readers aspire to bring this book into the hands of our primary school children – with the aim of re-igniting their relationship with their environment. As well as inspiring Spell Songs, The Lost Words is the Springboard for a number of other companion pieces. A group of young classical composers in New York, led by Aawa White, are working withthematerial to produce a series of new compositions and performances in North America.The nature on our doorstep so often goes unobserved but contains wonders, Jay discovers. “What takes years to grow takes second to crush,” we are told. It is a reminder that every acorn, tree and dandelion is a world in itself and a sacred part of our own. Since the Lost Words’ publication in October 2017, this book has had a transformative effect on all who have encountered it, not least the Folk by the Oak festival team who were inspired to conceive and commission Spell Songs. The spells are even better and I love the fact that it says explicitly ‘this is a book of spells to be spoken aloud’. Everything about it is absolutely beautiful and we will be getting behind it in a big way,” he said. Only a year after publication, the book had won two literary prizes and been translated into several languages.
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