Bag in the Wind

(Hardback)

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Description

In a singular first childrens book, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser follows a plastic bag on its capricious journey from a landfill into a series of townspeoples lives.

One cold morning in early spring, a bulldozer pushes a pile of garbage around a landfill and uncovers an empty plastic bag a perfectly good bag, the color of the skin of a yellow onion, with two holes for handles that someone has thrown away. Just then, a puff of wind lifts the rolling, flapping bag over a chain-link fence and into the lives of several townsfolk a can-collecting girl, a homeless man, a store owner not that all of them notice. Renowned poet Ted Kooser fashions an understated yet compassionate world full of happenstance and connection, neglect and care, all perfectly expressed in Barry Roots tender illustrations. True to the books earth-friendly spirit, it is printed on paper containing 100 percent recycled post-consumer waste and includes an authors note on recycling plastic bags.

Reviews

The exquisitely observed narrative renders the American landscape's dubious symbiosisnominally natural, persistently industrialworthy of a child's attention. . . . Root's gouache-and-watercolor pictures, suffused with the pale gold light of early-spring dawns, capture the injured land, its quirky denizens and the bag's familiarwellbagginess. Wonderful.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Bio

Ted Kooserwas the United States Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006 and won a Pulitzer Prize for his book of poemsDelights and Shadows.He is the author of twelve full-length volumes of poetry and several books of nonfiction, and his work has appeared in many periodicals. This is his first childrens book. He lives in Garland, Nebraska.

Barry Roothas illustrated many books for children, includingThe Cat Who Liked Potato Soupby Terry Farish andThe Birthday Treeby Paul Fleischman. He lives in Quarryville, Pennsylvania.