Blog Entry #13

 

America the Beautiful

Poem by Katharine Lee Bates

Illustrations by Wendell Minor

G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2003

45 pages

Poetry

 

 

I thought this book was an interesting pairing of the classic poem turned hymn, America the Beautiful, with an illustrator's beautiful artwork. The illustrator used Katharine Lee Bates poem and paid tribute to her through the beautiful paintings he created to join every line of America the Beautiful. All of the paintings in this book are actual landmarks here in America. The book also includes a map of all of the locations of the paintings and some information about them. This book starts with an introduction telling how Katharine Lee Bates came to write America the Beautiful, and the end of the book includes her and Samuel Augustus Ward's autobiographical information. Samuel Ward's music accompanies America the Beautiful in the song we know today.

The medium used in this book was painting using watercolor and gouache. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful in this book. Every page is a double page spread landscape painting. The text format is informal, so it definitely puts the focus on the artwork. The paintings are so realistic, and each of them looks as if they could be hanging on your living room wall. Every setting is in the outdoors, so the colors are endless. For the desert scenes, the hues are very warm, and there are darker, cooler hues in the city scenes. It is difficult to describe every color in the paintings, because each of them is a different setting and tone.

America the Beautiful would be great for second or third grade and up. The poem is easy to read, but the teacher would need to go over some vocabulary with the students since it was written in 1893. A teacher could read this aloud to the students, play the song, and integrate this into a social studies lesson on America. It could be used for a poetry lesson, and it would allow the students to see how some poems are actually ballads or songs. It could be used as a writing prompt, and the students could share what they believe makes America so beautiful. This book could spark all kinds of ideas for lessons, because there are so many different directions to go in. There are no awards or honors for this book.