Issue Twenty

Regular price $8.00 Sale

Forest!

March/April 2019

To really see, we have to see with an open heart: Attention without feeling… is only a report. Thank goodness—and oh, my—we know our children are paying attention. Thank goodness—and oh, my—we know our children are falling down. And the forest is a place where those both must happen often.

Come join us in the forest as we discover...

How to feed little birds in cold weather
What we can see when we keep our eyes wide open
How we are like the trees all around us
Why pine cones are sometimes shy
and so much more.

We recently won a Parents' Choice Gold award, and we are excited about the gold circle on our cover, and we hope to put it on many more to come! However, our funding is not guaranteed through this year, and we need your help. Please spread the word, share the gift of Root & Star, and order a copy to try and share with friends. Thank you so much!

The target audience for each magazine is children ages 3–8, or children who are being read to and/or are just learning to read—but because children are never far from their siblings and caregivers, we created a magazine that can be enjoyed by all ages, from 1 to 100.

Root & Star is published six times per year. Join us with one issue, or SUBSCRIBE here for 40 full-color pages of beauty and life in your mailbox SIX times per year.

Thank you for allowing us to bring heartfelt literature and art to children all year long. Hooray!

Issue 20 Contributors

Martyna Czub (Tesoros art) is an illustrator originally from Poland, currently living in Canada. She loves metaphors hidden in art and those you can find in nature. Inspired by them, she creates her own handmade accordion books.
Michela Degioannis (Covers) was born on a small Italian island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea called Sardegna. When she was a child, she wanted to be a zoologist. Now that she is an illustrator, insects are one of her favorite subjects. She just published her first book, Water Child (Il bambino d'acqua).
Max Ehrmann (Desiderata text) was an American writer who lived from 1872 to 1945.
The Far Woods (Pacific Northwest Conifers) is two sisters, Sonya and Nina Montenegro, who make art together on a farm in Portland, Oregon.
Heather Feinberg (Ammi text) is a mother, counselor, writer, educator, and the founder of Mindful Kids, a nonprofit organization in Austin, Texas, whose purpose is to help children (and the child inside us all) discover their voices, access their power, and, most importantly, connect to their inner knowing.
Bryan Nash Gill (Tree ring print) was an American artist who loved trees.
Gennifer Giuliano (Tesoros activity) grew up in the Catskill mountains of New York. She became curious about languages and cultures at an early age. Gennifer is now continuing to foster a love of language and culture with her own three children in coastal Maine.
JD Glass (Language of Wolves art) is an artist, writer, and musician who really loves to tell stories, and uses images, words, and sound to build and share the tales of all the worlds she carries.
David Gregal Jr. (Ask Arden art) lives in Maryland. At the end of the day, he loves reading books with his wife and three kids before bedtime.
J.D. Ho (Language of Wolves text) is a rock. With rocky thoughts. Living on a rocky mountain. With other rocks.
Abbigail Knowlton Israelsen (City Forest art) is an artist who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Abbi likes to look for fossils, mushrooms, and geodes with her four children.
Aimee Hagerty Johnson (cover and artist interview) has always loved to do all kinds of art. Some of her favorite things to draw are horses, sweaters, coffee pots, trees, and telescopes.
Hollis Kurman (My City Forest poem) writes poetry and children's stories. Her poems have been published in many journals, and her first picture book (about child refugees) will be published in 2020. She was born in New York City but lives in a very old canal house in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with her Dutch husband, their two children, and one oversized black cat named Cola.
Lida Larina (Root & Star comic; Keep Your Eyes Wide Open characters) lives in Russia. Every day, Lida walks her best friend—her black dog named Babai. After their walk, Lida draws the sleeping Babai.
Courtney Mandryk is one of the makers of this magazine. Quote: You do what you do until you can't anymore, and then you do something else.
Ute Lennartz-Lembeck (crochet tree) teaches art to children. She lives in Germany with her own two children (now grown), a dog (Mia) and a very old cat (Kristel, 18 years). She wants to want to help make the world a bit more colorful and friendly.
Kirrili Lonergan (Keep Your Eyes Wide Open forest) is a mother, illustrator and art therapist residing in Newcastle NSW Australia. She has several picture books including Ollie’s Treasure. She is a regular volunteer at Books4outback ensuring quality literature reaches children in outback communities.
J.S. MacLean (Lore of the Redwoods poem) has been writing poetry since the early 70s with two collections “Molasses Smothered Lemon Slices” and “Infinite Oarsmen for one”. He has had poems published internationally in Canada, USA, Ireland, UK, France, Israel, India, Thailand, and Australia. He enjoys the outdoors and has found many poems in the woods.
Amy Makortoff (child photo) can be found on Instagram, @throughtheeyesofafairy.
Maria Sibylla Merian (Maria’s Little Birds art) lived from 1647 to 1717. Though she was born in German, she traveled to amazing places far from home to study and draw insects.
Mary Oliver (When I Am Among the Trees poem) is an American poet who has won many big prizes, but we love her because she often writes about trees.
Andie Powers (Keep Your Eyes Wide Open text) is a writer and reader who lives with her husband and daughter in Seattle: a place where the city, sea and forest collide.
Kathleen Rice-Guter (yarn poem) is a writer captivated by the gentleness and generosity of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Kathryn Ringer-Hilfinger (Tesoros activity) speaks her non-native language Spanish to her three young children and is passionate about helping other bilingual families thrive in their use of a minority language. She lives in the Taconic mountains of New York.
Heather Franzen Rutten (Desiderata art) is an artist and illustrator living in Philadelphia. In her free time, she likes playing video games and attending orchestra concerts.
Natalie Sopinka (The Ocean Hides in the Forest Poem) lives in Ottawa with her husband and son, where she writes stories about scientist and their science. (Her poems are achived at phishdoc.com.)
Kathryn Tanis (At Home in the Forest art) is an illustrator, writer and jungle explorer. She loves research and uses her artwork to explore topics of evolution, conservation, and animal classification.
Ram Singh Urveti (hello/goodbye) is a tribal artist from India.
Laura K. Zimmermann is a professor at Shenandoah University. When she isn’t teaching, researching, or writing, she can be found wandering in the woods and chasing butterflies.