It’s National Pollinator Week, June 18-24, 2012. A solitary alchemist wears flowers like a robe, an invisible collector of treasures transmuted to food, bending to the rhythm of the dark current of life. • Solitary bee
Author: Rick Lieder
Painter and photographer Rick Lieder has been creating fine art and conceptual illustration for many years. His art has appeared on award-winning novels ranging from mysteries and science fiction, to books based on the X-Files TV series, to Newbery Award-winning books for children, A Single Shard and Princess Academy.
His work has been published widely in magazines and online (Orion, Natural
History Magazine and others), and by HarperCollins, Random House, Simon &
Shuster and Farrar, Straus & Giroux and more.
Recently he has concentrated on a body of work centering on ordinary backyard wildlife. These photographs capture the unique qualities of light interacting with the natural world, including luminous photographs of honey bees and small birds in flight, glowing fireflies mating and hovering over twilight fields, mosquitoes with a belly full of blood, and new-born praying mantis nymphs emerging from their egg cases.
STEP GENTLY OUT is his new nature picture book for all ages, a collaboration between painter and photographer Rick Lieder and novelist and poet Helen Frost.
Three starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews has selected Step Gently Out as one of four outstanding poetry titles for children to be featured on the Kirkus website for National Poetry Month, along with an interview.
A website with all the news, reviews and up-to-date information for the book, plus a book trailer: http://bugdreams.com/sgo/
Slipping Between Breezes
Stepping over a leafy bridge, an acrobat swings past the abyss, slipping between breezes. • Eastern black carpenter ant | Camponotus pennsylvanicus
The Court of the Sun
Congregating in the court of the Sun, the little king searches for his Queen, eluding onlookers waiting to buzz the royal couple. • Honey bee | Apis mellifera
Color Prophet
A Longlegged fly swims dark green waters, a crazy prophet pushing color over the edge. • Longlegged Fly | Dolichopodidae
Freezing Time
Casting a spell to freeze time, a grackle on the path to the perfect crime spirals out of control. • Grackle | Quiscalus quiscula
Fiery Stars
Love lost in summer evenings, too bright to ignore, a lawn transforms into a field of delicate, fiery stars. • Firefly | Lampyridae | Photinus pyralis
Unruly Buds
Her story lost in a chain of plot twists, she makes a sharp turn past unruly buds into a theme park of cool light. • Eastern black carpenter ant – Camponotus pennsylvanicus
Darker than Dusk
In a tangled landscape of misadventures, I’m blinded by arachnid beauty, her silken purpose darker than dusk. • Spider