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America the Beautiful

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America the Beautiful

eBook(NOOK Kids)

$9.99

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eBook(NOOK Kids)
$9.99

View All Available Formats & Editions

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Overview

Classic Americana and patriotism meet in this picture book version of the beloved song "America the Beautiful."

Katharine Lee Bates's timeless and beloved poem alongside art by award-winning author and artist Wendell Minor, capturing the magnificent beauty of the United States. Celebrate America's ideals of togetherness and marvel at classic illustrations of her natural and historical wonders: from Yosemite National Park and the Garden of the Gods, to Mount Rushmore and Plymouth Plantation. This reissued edition includes an updated introduction, information about the poet, the composer of the song, the sheet music, a map and brief information about all twenty-one American locations depicted in the book.

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632898951
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	04/03/2020
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	48
File size:	98 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Wendell Minor has designed more than two thousand book covers and written and/or illustrated more than fifty children's books, including many in collaboration with Jean Craighead George. Recent titles include Night Train, Night Train; Trapped!; How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow?; and If You Were a Panda Bear.

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Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Illustrator Wendell Minor takes readers on a journey through America, giving a majestic tribute to our country and Katherine Lee Bates's famous patriotic poem.
In lush pictures that capture the spirit of America's landscape and history, Minor whisks readers to various corners of the country -- including the New England, the Deep South, and the Rocky Mountains -- throughout all four verses of "America the Beautiful." Minor's "amber waves of grain" showcases a Kansas wheat field, with its golden expanses under an enormous sky, while the Wright brothers' flying airplane depicts "every gain divine" at Kitty Hawk. Other gorgeous features include Mount Rushmore and the Empire State Building, with back-of-the-book biographies of Bates and composer Samuel Augustus Ward, short blurbs about each of the scenes, and a U.S. map showing all of the locations rounding out the book.
A remarkably beautiful read that stands out among the many "America the Beautiful" picture books, Minor's rendition will indeed stir your soul. The book's scenes are vast and breathtaking, with vibrant colors that make each illustration leap off the page. A wonderful idea for gift giving to young patriots, and a rich tool for learning about the U.S. of A. Matt Warner

bn.com

"Minor creates a breathtaking visual journey to some of the country's diverse landscapes and monuments, explored in Bates's famous 1895 poem," said PW. All ages. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 1-5-Wendell Minor's gorgeously illustrated tribute to America (Putnam, 2003) is further enhanced by his calm reading. The narration begins with an introduction to the history of "America the Beautiful," a poem written by Katharine Lee Bates over 100 years ago. Later set to music composed by Samuel A. Ward, Bates's words have become America's unofficial anthem. Minor's illustrations are the images brought to his mind by Bates's timeless words. The poem's narration is slow enough to allow listeners to absorb the book's illustrations. It is also accompanied by soft music and gentle sound effects correspond to the illustrations. Listeners might be slightly confused by the small excerpt of Ward's biography read aloud when there are actually much lengthier bios of both the author and the composer in the book. A lovely orchestration of the song, which is sure to give listeners goose bumps, follows the narration. The first track on the CD and the first side of the cassette include page-turn sound effects.-Jennifer Iserman, Dakota County Library, Burnhaven Branch, Burnsville, MN Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

"Wendell Minor has created covers for a shelf of classic American literature...He invests them with interest, with story, in a way few artists can... It is one of his greatest gifts." -David McCullough

From the Publisher

2020-03-15
A pictorial interpretation of Bates’ “America the Beautiful.”
Few will question the aesthetic beauty of Minor’s paintings, which employ breathtaking realism to depict a diversity of landscapes in the continental U.S. Minor chooses sites ranging from the “purple mountain majesty” of Grand Teton National Park (first appearing on the front jacket) to a moving illustration for the line “Thine alabaster cities gleam / Undimmed by human tears!” that shows the Empire State Building illuminated in red, white, and blue with twin columns of light in the background. Throughout, Minor also varies his settings between the contemporary era and the past, selectively including people in some art. Unfortunately, herein lies a romanticizing of American history that is reliant on exclusion and erasure. The cover image of the Tetons is reused on the recto of an interior spread and expanded to a facing verso depicting three lone tepees, smoke rising from their tops. Such imagery risks relegating Indigenous people to the past and reinforces the myth of historically sparse Native populations—especially when juxtaposed with a scene of “pilgrim[s]” at Plimouth Plantation and another with a covered wagon moving through Nebraska. A spread with the figures on Mount Rushmore exalted as “heroes… / Who more than self their country loved / And mercy more than life” further whitewashes America’s history of settler colonialism and slavery.
Both beautiful and deeply flawed, like its subject. (biographical notes, sheet music, key, map) (Picture book. 4-10)

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