Green on Green
Written by Dianne White and Illustrated by Felicita Sala
A quick housekeeping note! The Page Turn will take a break next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, and will return the week of December 1st! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy time with family, friends, and as much pie as you want. Cheers! —V
As the seasons change and Thanksgiving is (somehow) upon us, it felt like a perfect moment to feature GREEN ON GREEN, a lovely, lilting book that’s a simple celebration of the seasons, complete with a parallel story in its gorgeous artwork.
Written by Dianne White and illustrated by Felicita Sala, GREEN ON GREEN is part of a series of what I think of as the “color and light books” from White, all featuring fantastically rendered rhyme scheme. They’re ideal bedtime books, with a cadence that is calm and soothing.
Intrepid readers may remember Felicita Sala’s work from my inaugural newsletter, WHAT’S COOKING AT 10 GARDEN STREET? Though I’ve held out on featuring her again, it’s been difficult—I’m a huge fan of her illustrations! (I’m on the waiting list for her latest, A LOST CAUSE, at our local library!)
With that, let’s dive into GREEN ON GREEN.
"Yellow the flower. Yellow the seed. Yellow and black the buzzing bee."
Say it out loud. Isn’t it wonderful to speak?
GREEN ON GREEN is essentially one long, lovely poem, which ties the beauty of each season to color (and more!). Throughout, the repetitive structure of the poem follows:
a a a b c b, c
Here, we open in spring, with the color yellow. Evoking flowers, seeds, and bees through her repetition, White adeptly builds a springtime scene in the reader’s mind, enhanced further by a change in repetition (b & c) in the second verse:
Lemonade petals. Sunflakes between. Lemonade, sunflakes, and yellow on green.
Note the color shift to green at the end…so smooth! This combination of “color + green” anchors the even verses throughout the book, with green as the lone constant color throughout the year. (And, spoiler: the book gets its title from the final line of the poem!)
For her part, Sala—as ever!—does a brilliant job of building a palette that enhances the text and tells a rich visual story on each spread. In the one above, pops of cotton candy pink and bright red frame the top and left edges of the scene, with varied tints and shades of green and yellow dominating the art. The effect feels fresh, light, verdant, with the warmer colors moving the eye about the page. I also love how she incorporated a bit of blue into the tabletop shadows for balance.
And then there are these wonderful duets of spreads, which feature the same characters and action on the (wordless) page turn, but with different colors and details. The effect is like a match cut between seasons—in this case, hurling you from spring to summer in the blink of an eye. You know how we all say, “How is time going so fast?” This is that, in visual, book form. It’s great!
Parallel story alert! As we move through the year—and the book—observant readers will notice that our protagonist’s mama is pregnant! By summer, we see the slight swell of her belly…
In fall, she’s quite pregnant. By winter—and the final spreads—we note a tiny baby in her arms. I wonder if Sala added this detail on her own or White put it in illustration notes? Either way, in addition to the changing seasons and color palettes, it’s an effective way to visually mark the passage of time for readers.
And that’s GREEN ON GREEN! It’s a lovely little book—one that you can read over and over again, especially when you need something low key that is like a salve when read aloud.
Dianne White and Felicita Sala worked on an additional book in this informal series, called DARK ON LIGHT. This one also has a parallel story, featuring kids who adventure out on a sunset-to-night walk through the woods. It’s poetics are structured similarly, and the art is just as compelling. The two of these together would make a lovely gift set to a new parent.
If you’re into picture books with poetry, it’s worth exploring White’s full catalog—she’s got plenty of books that are ideal for very young readers.
More poetry picture books I’ve recently enjoyed (better suited for older readers):
FIREFLY (this one was gorgeous)
IF I COULD CHOOSE THE BEST DAY (a collection of poems)
Support the makers:
Buy your copy:
Out this week:
Cities : Travel Through the World’s Amazing Places by Manon Bucciarelli
Moon Cat by Casi Cole, Amanda Romanick (A meditative bedtime story)
Look Up by Azul López
Bear by Himself by Geoffrey Hayes (Reissue of the 1976 version!)
When You’re a Boy by Blake Nuto
Alyte by Jérémie Moreau (Whew! What a book! Clocking in at 304 pages, I don’t even know how to categorize it—PB? Graphic novel? It’s ruthless and real and beautiful and not like anything I can remember seeing in the market.)
Mika and the Chiller by Agata Loth-Ignaciuk and Berenika Kolomycka
Making Art by Diana Ejaita
M E T A
In this Post: Green on Green by Dianne White and Felicita Sala
Keywords: Poetry, lyrical picture book, seasons, fall, winter, spring, summer, pregnancy, passage of time, colors, nature, seasonal change