The Lost Words
From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist and author Jackie Morris, a beautiful collection of poems and illustrations to help readers rediscover the magic of the natural world.
In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary -- widely used in schools around the world -- was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these "lost words" included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions -- the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual -- became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world.
Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a "spell book" that will conjure back twenty of these lost words, and the beings they name, from acorn to wren. By the magic of word and paint, they sought to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike, and to celebrate the wonder and importance of everyday nature. The Lost Words is that book -- a work that has already cast its extraordinary spell on hundreds of thousands of people and begun a grass-roots movement to re-wild childhood across Britain, Europe, and North America.
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Robert Macfarlane is the bestselling author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks and Underland. He is also co-creator of The Lost Words, with Jackie Morris, and Ness, with Stanley Donwood. His work has won multiple awards including most recently the Wainwright Book Prize 2019. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The New York Times.
Jackie Morris has written and illustrated over forty children's books, including Song of the Golden Hare and Tell Me A Dragon, which have collectively sold more than a million copies worldwide. She is co-creator of The Lost Words, for which she won a Kate Greenaway Medal, and most recently introduced and illustrated a new edition of Barbara Newhall Follett's lost classic The House Without Windows.
JACKIE MORRIS is an author and illustrator, photographer and painter. She was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2019. She lives in a small house beside the sea in St. David's, Wales. Her many books include Tell Me a Dragon; The Snow Leopard; The Wild Swans and Ted Hughes's How the Whale Became. She has a lively presence on social media and progress of her work can be followed on her blog: www.jackiemorris.co.uk.
Stylish and melancholy, The Lost Words is a book to savour.-- "Wall Street Journal"
Art, verse, and nature are combined with entertaining elegance in The Lost Words . . . This large, quality hardcover allows words and watercolour to shine and results in a work that can be left open at any page to stunning effect.-- "Shelf Awareness"
Utterly enchanting, it's celebration of nature -- but also language itself. If I ran the world, it'd be in every school library and classroom possible.-- "Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast"
This union of natural history, poetry, art, and whimsy is, indeed, a truly enchanting all-ages book of life to contemplate, read aloud, and share.-- "Booklist"
A sumptuous, nostalgic ode to a disappearing landscape.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
