Red Sings from the Treetops: a Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman

Sidman, Joyce. Red Sings from the Treetops: a Year in Colors. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

ISBN: 9780547014944

“Red Sings from the Treetops” is a poetry book which focuses on the colors of the different seasons of the year.  Sidman cycles through the seasons: “Spring”, “Summer”, “Fall”, and “Winter”.  Each section is comprised of several poems which are brought to life with imagery.  The poems describe the different colors which each season bring.  Each poem is devoted to one color and is untitled.  The poems describe particular things without explicitly naming them.  The illustrations are fanciful, colorful, and elaborate. 

Red splashes fall trees,

Seeps into

Every vein

Of every five-fingered leaf.

Red swells

On branches bent low.

Red: crisp, juicy

Crunch!

This particular poem is about apple trees and the individual apples which weigh trees down in the Fall.  If I were to introduce this poetry book to a class, I’d do it by way of a game.  I’d print off each poem without the illustration and I’d ask volunteers to read them aloud to the class.  The class should try and guess what is the topic of the poem.