The Way to Start a Day

This beautiful book is one I use frequently. It is priceless in terms of teaching honor to the earth and her people.

The illustrations add so much to the simple beauty of this book. The story is sweet and uplifting. Well done.

Longtime collaborators Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall again offer kids a new look and sound, this time in the service of starting the day with a ritual to greet the sun. Illustrations are flowing and colorful, more abtract than most children's books, and the text encourages connections to the past and to the earth.

I am an elementary school teacher. Byrd Baylor has helped me teach reading, and loving to read, to first through fourth grades. It seems the more reluctant readers are most easily hooked!Each school morning in September, I read The Way To Start A Day to my class. By the end of September, children are saying the words with me. Soon, kids volunteer to read the book, alone, or in pairs, depending on their abilities. The children take extra copies from the classroom book baskets, and read them to their families. They are surprised at how many of the words they can read. But the book has become so familiar to them, it doesn't surprise me at all! The Way To Start A Day flies off the school library shelves, and Byrd Baylor becomes a favorite author to my students. They innovate on the text, writing stories, poems, picture books, and more. Peter Parnall's illustrations are as captivating as Baylor's lyrical text, and as fascinating to children as "Where's Waldo?"!I love this book!

This book for children shows how so many different peoples and cultures (from American Indians to African tribes to ancient Egyptians) have greeted the rising Sun with songs and praise. This book, illustrated by Peter Parnall, was a 1979 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustrations in a book for children.