Melinda Michels

Is the Sky Awake? Melinda Michels

Is the Sky Awake? is a journey with a delightful fairy through dawn's natural sights and sounds including baby birds begging, fish jumping, roosters crowing and ants working. Each double page visually and actively leads the reader from the left page with fairy footsteps and the accompanying action word to the active, colorful scenes on the right page including the imbedded fairy to find and repetitive engaging text.

A life-long educator of children of all ages, Melinda Michels has an understanding of what basic skills young readers need to practice and what features entice and engage young readers. Is the Sky Away? has it all. It is complete with finger-walking footsteps in the left-to-right pattern in our English language. The left page also includes repeated sounds or actions for the readers to say aloud. The leading footsteps draw the young reader to the paired right page that includes engaging age appropriate text, with just enough repetition to ease independent reading. The colorfully detailed, beautifully crafted nature scenes draw the eye to searching for the fairy and morning's awakening activities for that double page scene.

The inspiration for Is the Sky Awake? came from Melinda's younger daughter, Carmen, asking each morning that very question to know if it is time to rise. They would lift the bottom portion of her shade in the morning to look out and see what activity was happening in the front yard. Carmen would see if the sky was awake by noticing critters moving about, dew sparkling, flowers blooming, and sure enough, her dog shaking! This delightful and engaging journey is sure to be a favorite of the very young and not so very young!