THE STORY OF THE ROOT-CHILDREN and MOTHER EARTH AND HER CHILDREN by Sibylle von Olfers

PUBLISHED: 1906, in German
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MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: This is a classic story of the changing seasons. The root children spend the winter asleep. When spring comes, they wake, sew themselves new gowns, and clean and paint the beetles and bugs. All summer they play in fields, ponds and meadows before returning in the autumn to Mother Earth, who welcomes them home and puts them to bed once more.

MY THOUGHTS: This is slightly strange and creepy, with the children living underground in the dark and having to make their own clothing. They're overseen by the elderly Mother Earth. It's a very simple twenty-four page children's picture book showing their outdoor activities during each season of the year. I love the illustrations but wish more colors had been used. My favorite image is below.

PUBLISHER: Breckling Press, 10/2007
MY GRADE: A
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SYNOPSIS: The incredibly intricate and vivid illustrations in this book are details of a modern quilt inspired by Sibylle von Olfers' classic storybook Mother Earth and Her Children. This vibrant new translation, in turn inspired by the quilt, explores the changing of the seasons and delicately touches upon the circle of life.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a 2007 reworking of the 1906 version, but its illustrations come from the quilt a German woman named Sieglinde Schoen Smith made while living in the USA. She grew up loving the original book and was inspired in 2002 to make a quilt using the illustrations from it. The writing has been changed completely into rhyming verses. The colors in this are much more saturated than in the original and I like it better. The paperback version is still in print and I wish to own it.