Author Visit: Joyce Sidman

Joyce Sidman is the author of many award-winning children’s poetry books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and two Caldecott Honor books. Her recent book The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science won the 2019 Robert F. Sibert Medal.  Hello, Earth! Poems to Our Planet has won the 2022 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People! Joyce also has received the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry for her body of work. In her home state of Minnesota, she teaches poetry writing to school children and walks through the woods with her dog Watson.

Her latest book released in May We Are Branches - is a singular celebration of a beautiful and fascinating shape in nature.

Branches are all around us: in butterfly wings, in gecko toes, in flowers, frost, and mud. Whether as electricity moving across the sky or rivers flowing to the sea, branches are nature’s most efficient way to spread and to connect. They are even found inside our own bodies, helping us reach and grow with each breath and heartbeat. Branches—strong, hopeful, beautiful—are the shape of life. How many can you find?

“In this follow-up to Swirl by Swirl (2011), author Sidman and Caldecott-winning illustrator Krommes team up again to introduce another beautiful—and useful—pattern in nature: branches. Beginning with tree limbs, the most obvious form of branches, poetic text and luminous scratchboard illustrations with refined watercolors explain the purpose of different branches from the branches’ points of view.” - Booklist starred review