There is beautiful puppetry designed by Amber Donovan Kahn and lovely visual abstractions in Hannah Sibai’s set including artfully fluttering ocean waves and a giant luminous globe which looks like an oversized pop-up of Morris’s illustration in the book. After Macfarlane read the ‘Pokémon paper’ (a study published in Science in 2002 by Professor Andrew Balmford from Cambridge’s Department of Zoology), he started to gather other evidence of a loss of ‘nature-literacy’. A National Trust survey, for instance, showed that half of children couldn’t tell the difference between a wasp and a bee, yet almost all could name a Dalek; and a three-year RSPB research project found only one in five children in Britain are ‘positively connected to nature’. The spells are even better and I love the fact that it says explicitly ‘this is a book of spells to be spoken aloud’. Everything about it is absolutely beautiful and we will be getting behind it in a big way,” he said. What we might call the ‘nature of childhood’ has changed dramatically in Britain over recent decades,” says Macfarlane, a Reader in Environmental Humanities in Cambridge University's Faculty of English. As with The Lost Words, the publishers of The Lost Spells have commissioned Eva John to create an 'Explorers' Guides', but this time the guide has been designed to follow the seasons, and updatededitions will be made available as the year progresses.

The Lost Spells is a celebration of the natural; it is a collection of prose poetry about foxes and trees and birds and rabbits and flowers: it is an elegy to what we are losing and what we must try to retain.A book about spells that succeeds in being spell-binding in its own right . . . It already feels like a true classic. Buy one copy for yourself and any others for as many children as you can afford' Books for Keeps The love of and for nature that Macfarlane and Morris are feeling is palpable - and infectuous. I also found myself learning the odd thing or two while reading their books. As some of you may know, I'm an illustrator myself, and one of my favorite things to illustrate is wildlife, nature and landscapes. And as if the book couldn't get any better, it is filled with the most stunning watercolor illustrations of all the beautiful wildlife Robert Macfarlane is writing about!

A major work for children’s choir and orchestra has been co-commissioned from composer James Burton by the Boston Symphony (USA) and Hallé Orchestra (Manchester, UK) for premiere performances in 2019 (Boston) and 2020 (Hallé). It’s educational; it’s a book we should give to our children and to our adults to help them see the sense of wonder that is outside, and its captured perfectly though the power of words and the beautiful illustrations. And so the re-wilding begins from a grass roots level as readers aspire to bring this book into the hands of our primary school children – with the aim of re-igniting their relationship with their environment. ROBERT MACFARLANE is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the author of a number of bestselling and prize-winning books, including The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Holloway, Landmarks, and Underland, which won the Wainwright Prize. His work has been translated into many languages and widely adapted for film, television, and radio. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E. M. Forster Award for Literature in 2017. He is a word collector and mountain climber -- and he has three children who have taught him more about the world than any book. Since the Lost Words’ publication in October 2017, this book has had a transformative effect on all who have encountered it, not least the Folk by the Oak festival team who were inspired to conceive and commission Spell Songs.The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words - among them "acorn", "bluebell", "kingfisher" and "wren" - from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory." Asked whether there was an environmental message in The Lost Spells, Morris said: “It’s a celebration of the nearby wild. If there is a message there, it is simply wonder and awe at the beautiful complexity of the non-human. And respect, for the wisdom of trees, the shape of a bird, the wild of the fox.” Wonderful activities and ideas celebrating the magic of nature and language which can be used standalone or consecutively as a cross-curricular scheme of work in English, Science, Art, PSHE and to support research skills. Each section takes one of the animals or items from nature featured in each spell, and invites children to Seek, Find, Speak, Write and/or Create their response with extracts and illustrations from the book to support and inspire learning: Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge. A timeless, stunning gift to be pored over and cherished for years - dazzlingly beautiful and richly inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of The Lost Words

As well as inspiring Spell Songs, The Lost Words is the Springboard for a number of other companion pieces. A group of young classical composers in New York, led by Aawa White, are working withthematerial to produce a series of new compositions and performances in North America. TheFolk by the Oak festival team, proud commissioners of Spell Songs, were thrilled with the release of this wonderfully inventive, dazzlingly beautiful bookand the opportunity to create new music with the Spell Songs Ensemble! In London, The Big Green Bookshop took only four days to raise enough funds to donate a book to the primary schools in the London Borough of Haringey.

FAQs

Online culture has boomed, screen time has soared and the ‘roaming range’ within which children can play and stray unsupervised has shrunk by more than 90% in 40 years amid parental fears about traffic, ‘stranger danger’ and the pressure of school work.”

I loved this book; it’s a book I will revisit and a book I will encourage others to read because despite increasing decline and modernisation, the natural world is still on our doorstep: she is still there if we are willing to look and to appreciate her. Lets make an effort to understand her magic and (better yet) keep it alive. Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed' Dara McAnulty Enchanting literally means "to put under a spell." Now I'm sure you can see why I think "The Lost SPELLS" is utterly enchanting! A proportion of proceeds from each copy of The Lost Words is being given to one such organisation, Action for Conservation.

Key info

The nature on our doorstep so often goes unobserved but contains wonders, Jay discovers. “What takes years to grow takes second to crush,” we are told. It is a reminder that every acorn, tree and dandelion is a world in itself and a sacred part of our own. Only a year after publication, the book had won two literary prizes and been translated into several languages.