North Country Spring
North Country Spring
A book of verse for children
Elizabeth Kouhi
Illustrated by Judi Pennanen
9 X 12 inches, 52 pages
"ELIZABETH KOUHI'S POEMS SHOW THE BEAUTY in the north country for children who live there; and for children in the city, her poems offer a way of opening up their imagination to the sensory experience of the North."
"Kouhi speaks of "poplars on the hill crayoned in pale green"; "laughing, laughing loon"; a "corps de ballet" of birches; "mustard tamaracks" lighting the autumn world. She speaks to The Great Blue Heron:
You measure
My Bay
With your
Long, elegant
Legs.
She has immersed herself in the wonders of Nature here at home and responds with emotion to the dear familiar world. Children will respond to this emotion because it is born of genuine love, and they too will accept the homely beauties as they are encouraged to see them with new eyes."
—Irma McDonough
Judi Pennanen provides a menagerie of ink drawings to complement the poems by Elizabeth Kouhi.
J.O. (Judi) Pennanen
Illustrator
Do I Have To Go To Sleep? is J.O. Pennanen's tenth illustrated book for Penumbra Press. Her illustrations for children's books are often described as whimsical and lyrical, while her artwork
for adult literature is edgy and dark. Having lived in northern Ontario and New
Brunswick, she currently resides in southwestern Ontario.
Judi's art is represented in several major collections, public and private. Her subject matter very often derives from the northland itself, as in North Country Spring, from which she draws on the sights and sounds of "the landscape and its creatures, and the four seasons that create the variety and richness of the places."
Elizabeth Kouhi
Author
Elizabeth Kouhi is of Finnish ancestry and lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario. A retired school teacher, she still regularly visits elementary schools to enchant young children with samples of her northern verse.
