The Lost Words

This book is by one of my favourite nature writers of all time, Robert Macfarlane. It’s a picture book that is for humans of all ages, truly. His poetry makes for a beautiful read aloud, the illustrations by Jackie Morris are stunning and the size of it makes for an immersive experience. I absolutely loved reading it with my kids when they were a little younger and we all piled into my bed. I also believe that it works… the poems are ‘spells’ designed to bring certain words back into use since they were cut from the Junior Oxford English… show more.

The story behind The Lost Words began when a widely-used children’s dictionary removed many everyday words associated with nature. These included florals like the bluebell, heather, fern, as well as many animals. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris created this spell book to conjure the lost magic of the missing flora and fauna. The paintings in this book are full of movement, intrigue, and magic. The cover features the most beautiful dandelion illustration I have ever seen, and let me tell you firsthand, they are far from the easiest flowers to draw!

Sonnet 98 begins: “From you have I been absent in the spring”—The Lost Words articulates aspects of springtime that are ever more absent from our world: Acorn, Heather, Fern, Buttercup, Bramble… Words such as these have been taken out of children’s books, he says, and hence, out of their voices, their stories, their experience of the world. MacFarlane is a master of making us see them again in the concise lyricism of an acrostic poem and expansive illustrations—restoring the words & the worlds they inhabit with their inherent joy. It’s a big book, but if portable is more your… show more.

This giant book draws attention to the lost words of nature through epic illustration and design, rich watercolour depictions of the natural world are combined with gold backdrops and beautiful poetry. Focusing on British wildlife the book invites the reader to recall once familiar terms, a ‘charm of goldfinches’, the otter, the weasel, and the wren are celebrated, names of wildlife countryside once familiar that now seem to be fading as climate change impacts the populations of our most beloved species. A beautifully large portfolio of art and words that is a wonderful ‘book of spells.’