Miss.+Rumphius

Stephanie Perez

Miss Rumphius By: Barbara Cooney

__** Bibliographical Data: **__ Age Range: 5 and up Grade Level: Kindergarten and up  Series: Picture Puffins Paperback: 32 pages Publisher: Puffin; Reprint edition (November 6, 1985) Language: English ISBN-10: 0140505393 ISBN-13: 978-0140505399

__** Summary: **__ Miss Rumphius is the story of Alice Rumphius and her desire to do three things: live by the sea, go to faraway places and make the world a more beautiful place. This third desire is instilled in young Alice by her wise old grandfather, and is mostly what this special story is about. After Alice listens to her grandfather's stories of faraway places, Alice tells him she, too, will go to faraway places and she will eventually settle by the sea. Alice's grandfather intones, that is all well and good, but you must also do a third thing. "You must do something to make the world more beautiful."

After an account of Alice's travel, very appealingly illustrated, the story moves on to depict the charming seaside town Alice eventually settles in. Here Alice will do her Grandfather proud and start making the world more beautiful. After a hard winter, Alice realizes that her lupines (a gorgeous flower of purple, blue and rose) have not only survived but expanded, with a little help from the wind and the birds. Alice has her "aha" moment. She orders large quantities of the very best lupine seeds from the very best seed house. When the seeds arrive, Alice fills her pockets daily and scatters the seeds wherever she goes. Lupines flourish and prosper throughout the whole town, thus making her corner of the world a more beautiful place.

At the end of this story, you realize the narrator is actually Alice's great niece, Alice. Great Aunt Alice urges her great niece to also find her own way to make the world a more beautiful place. Both the gorgeous language and exquisite illustrations make this book a prize to be won by the lucky reader who gets to enjoy it. Barbara Cooney, it seems, was ahead of her time with this very green story of taking care of our environment.

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__** Literary Element Analysis: **__ I enjoyed reading Miss Rumphius for three main reasons: the plot, the illustrations, and the thought-provoking message that pushes readers to broaden their own perspectives. I have a personal connection to this book because I read this story when I was little. To this day, my favorite part of the story is the plot. The story is about a woman traveling the world alone, seeking happiness, and trying to find a way to make her mark on the world. This mark would be something to be shared with others because it would be something that would make the world more beautiful. In the conclusion of the book, Miss Rumphius is successful. She plants hundreds of lupines everywhere, and these lupines fill the entire town to become admired by all who live and visit there. I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the flowers and seeing the pictures that matched the writing. “The next spring there were lupines everywhere. Fields and hillsides were covered with blue and purple and rose-colored flowers. They bloomed all along the highways and down the lanes.” There is a stunning picture illustrating this that took up two entire pages. The gorgeous artwork throughout the book perfectly matched the story and made it come to life. The big idea of the story is to teach readers that everyone should do something during their lifetime that makes the world more beautiful.

__** Review: **__ I really love this book because it teaches a lesson to children. The lesson is that everyone should not live selfishly, but rather they should do something good for the world. I would share this book with y classroom because I believe it would broaden my students’ perspectives and inspire them to do good things.

__** Author Biography: **__ Barbara Cooney is one of the most familiar names in children’s literature. Illustrator and author supreme, she has won two Caldecott Awards and numerous other prizes for her work and for good reason. She has created some of the most beautiful and important books in the field. She now wears a new title, that of philanthropist, for she recently gave $550,000 to the Damariscotta, Maine Public Library. The tiny town, 50 miles north of Portland, had a library in need of repair and enlargement and Barbara Cooney's gift will make that happen. Barbara Cooney now makes her home in Damariscotta although she was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her artistic endeavors as a child were encouraged by her mother, who was an artist herself. Barbara graduated from Smith College and then briefly attended art school in New York. Just one year after graduation, she had her first commission, the illustrations for Ake and His World; by Bertil Malmberg and she was off. Since then Barbara Cooney has illustrated over 100 books. After receiving her second Caldecott, she began to write them as well and it's become hard to decide which she does better. She says that a picture book is like a string of beads with the illustrations being the jewels but the text is the string that holds them all together. She married a doctor, Charles Porter, and the couple lived in Massachusetts where they raised four children. She has said that three of the books: Hattie and the Wild Waves, Miss Rumphius, and Island Boy are as close as she will ever come to autobiography and readers will find similarities in them to her life. Like Miss Rumphius, Barbara has traveled widely and she surely has made the world more beautiful with her work. She now lives in a house in Maine overlooking the sea.