Friday, February 12, 2016

Book Review: The Day Is Waiting

(Blogjob tags: art inspired by the Bible,children’s book,collaborative bookDon FreemanLinda Zuckerman Knabpicture book.)

A Fair Trade Book
Title: The Day Is Waiting
Author: Linda Zuckerman Knab and Don Freeman
Don Freeman's memorial web page: https://donfreeman.info/
Date: 1980
Publisher: Viking / Penguin
ISBN: 0-670-71820-3
Length: pages not numbered, but this is approximately a six-stanza poem
Illustrations: paintings by Don Freeman
Quote: “What do you see when you look outside? A pigeon...Some penguins...The world so wide.”
Don Freeman, a popular picture-book artist, died in 1978, leaving behind a batch of pictures for a book that hadn't been written yet. He was better known at the time than Linda Zuckerman Knab, who assembled his pictures together with a short poem and published them as a book, and his name appears in larger type on the cover.
It’s hard to say much about a book as short as this one without quoting the whole thing, so I’ll say that this book is recommended to preschool and primary school students who enjoy looking at pictures while rhymes are read to them. If adult readers get tired of the poems these children like, well, at least this one’s nice and short.
Although it's definitely not a religious book, The Day Is Waiting is often bought by religious teachers and parents. Reviewer @GailWelborn says that its final illustration portrays a Bible text from the book of Isaiah ("For ye shall go out with joy, And be led forth with peace: The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:12).)
And why not? Along the way, the child reader has been taken on quite a tour, past scenes from New York City and London, unidentified landscapes from several exotic countries, and fantastic countries where people ride on turtles and crickets host concerts. No real day trip could take in this many different sites. Possibly this trip represents one Freeman might have been able to take in Heaven...
The Day Is Waiting is becoming harder to find, but in order to offer it as a Fair Trade Book I'll stick my neck out and say $5 per book + $5 per package + $1 per online payment, out of which Zuckerman or a charity of her choice will get $1 per book if you send payments to either address at the very bottom of the screen. As always, although living writers get their $1 or more out of whatever the total price for a package may be, you pay only $5 for shipping as many items as will fit into one package. This is a thin book; feel free to click on that button that says "A Fair Trade Book" to read about other books you might throw into the package.
(Regular readers already know this, but, for those who don't: If you click on that "copyrighted" image, you can buy a copy directly from the person who photographed the book jacket at Amazon. In theory I get a smaller commission on that sale, too, so feel free.)

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