Places and Love

Speaking of love, this book is one of mine.  Sitting on the couch yesterday, surrounded by my own loves,  I cried as I finished it--something I rarely do when reading aloud.  It is beautiful through and through.  The poetry of words, the warm illustrations, the idea that it portrays.  Permit me to quote (I really could just regurgitate the entire text) but here are a few gems:

"On the day I was born my grandmother wrapped me in a blanket made from the wool of her sheep.  She held me up in the open window so that what I heard first was the wind.  What I saw first were all the places to love...."

and later:

"My grandmother loved the river best of all the places to love.  That sound, like a whisper, she said; Gathering in pools where trout flashed like jewels in the sunlight.  Grandmother sailed little bark boats downriver to me with messages.  I love you, one said..."

and still later:

"Someday I might live in the city.  Someday I might live by the sea.  But soon I will carry my sister on my shoulders throught the fields; I will send her messages downriver in small boats; and I will watch her at the top of the hill, trying to touch the sky.  I will show her my favorite  place, the marsh, where ducklings follow their mother like tiny tumbles of leaves..."

I'm thinking that this would be a great mini-unit study.  Read the book together.  What are our "places to love"?  Make our own book(s) of these places.  Try for the same poetry of words and drawings.  Try to capture that fleeting thing in life that holds hearts to places.