

What I knew would never be enough.” Color often is a clue to the author’s, poet’s or illustrator’s theme. She would ask me: What is the color of the tree shadow? Is it blue? Blue-green? Violet? She was teaching me to paint what I saw, not what I knew. She was a painter and my first painting lessons came from her. The last page of the book has a note written by the illustrator about her mother, an artist, who would take her daughter for walks on snowy evenings: “My mother’s favorite thing to do was simply to walk outside and look. This poem happens to be an exemplar poem listed in Appendix 2 of the Common Core State Standards. I have a beautiful copy of this poem with illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

One that I love is Robert Frost’s famous poem entitled Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. “Snowy evenings often inspire poets, musicians and writers. In light of the exorbitant amounts of snow we have been getting here in New England this past month, Maryellen Rooney Moreau, creator of Story Grammar Marker ® shared some thoughts. Owl Moon: A Winter Adventure with Narrative and Expository Text

