Susan Barba

American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide, edited by Susan Barba and illustrated by Leanne Shapton, is an attractive collection of literary works that reference wildflowers and accompanying artwork of those flowers.

Before getting this book I had two distinct ideas of what I would be getting. One was the book with a lot of pictures and the periodic stanza or paragraph from a work. I would have been happy with that as long as the pictures were good, but those books are less about the "literary" and more about the illustrations. The other, which this volume falls into, is the book that contains poems and longer prose excerpts with illustrations still plentiful but used to highlight the writing. This is my preference, so I was very happy.

The literary pieces are varied in both style and time, and the artwork is very nice. I like that the art is less about a detailed look at the wildflowers and more about the feel of them. Since poetry, including poetic prose, is more about what things say to us than about specifically what they are, I think the style works wonderfully.

I would recommend this to anyone who loves literature and also loves the images, both real and in our minds, that good literature creates. Bringing them together around specific references to wildflowers is fun.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (plus d'informations)