As the bugs resume repair and construction, the bud blossoms into invigorating beauty. Drawn to the small miracle of the flower, other tiny forest creatures join the joyful labor — the ants interrupt their own industry, the slug slides over in wide-eyed wonder, the bees and the butterflies hover in admiration, and even the elder’s wife emerges from the tree trunk, huffing a pipe as she marvels at the new blossom. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - The marvelously illustrated story is written in the imagined language of bugs, the meaning of which the reader deduces with delight from the familiar human emotions they experience throughout the story — surprise, exhilaration, fear, despair, pride, joy. We take the title to mean “What is that?”— the exclamation which the ento-protagonists issue upon discovering a swirling shoot of new growth, which becomes the centerpiece of the story as the bugs try to make sense, then make use, of this mysterious addition to their homeland. “Ma nazoot,” answers another —“I don’t know.” She submitted a manuscript with text only. “The words were all gibberish and there were no sketches,” she recalled. “Just a lot of illustration notes like, ‘Two damsel flies approach a small plant.’” The remnants of the wilted flower sink into the forest bed as a nocturnal serenade unfolds overhead before a blanket of snow stills the forest.

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Night comes, then autumn, bringing their own magic as the world silently performs its eternal duty of churning the cycle of growth and decay. I feel like Du Iz Tak offers a great opportunity to have a conversation with kids about having a growth mindset and about not giving up just because something is hard or unfamiliar. It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis,” Henry Miller wrote in contemplating art and the human future. The beautiful Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi invites us to find meaning and comfort in impermanence, and yet so much of our suffering stems from our deep resistance to the ruling law of the universe — that of impermanence and constant change. How, then, are we to accept the one orbit we each have along the cycle of life and inhabit it with wholeheartedness rather than despair?

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The fort collapses and the bugs, looking not terribly distraught — perhaps because they know that this is nature’s way, perhaps because they know that they too will soon follow the flower’s fate in this unstoppable cycle of life — say farewell and walk off. Then we talk about how they did, in the end, get what was going on because they left their brains on, and kept trying to figure it out. So often, when confronted with something new, or something we don’t understand, we shut our brains off and quit trying. Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments It also became clear that many publishers didn’t realize that Ellis’s dialogue was more than nonsense. The first attempt at translating the text into French raised a red flag for the author. “I used ‘ribble’ for ladder and I used it twice to help a reader intuit what it meant,” Ellis recalled. “But in the first French version there was no repeated word. So we asked about that and they were surprised to learn that my gibberish actually meant something.” So Carson wrote out her text for the first time—in English. “We gave them the translation and they completely rewrote their own version,” Ellis said.

Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis | Waterstones Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis | Waterstones

I thought it would be fun to share how my students and I have translated the bug language in Du Iz Tak over the last two years. I have no confirmation if any of this is accurate, but I feel like most of it is at least close. That’s why it’s an “unofficial” dictionary. But their joyful plan is unceremoniously interrupted by a giant spider, who envelops their new playground in a web — a reminder that in nature, where one creature’s loss is another’s gain and vice versa, gain and loss are always counterbalanced in perfect equilibrium with no ultimate right and ultimate wrong. That’s what illustrator and author Carson Ellis explores with great subtlety and warmth in Du Iz Tak? ( public library) — a lyrical and imaginative tale about the cycle of life and the inexorable interdependence of joy and sorrow, trial and triumph, growth and decay. As the bugs witness the spider’s doing in dejected disbelief, a bird — a creature even huger and more formidable — swoops in to eat the spider and further devastates the stalk-fort. At its base, we see the bugs grow from disheartened to heartbroken. But when the bird leaves, one of them discovers — with the excited exclamation “Su!,” which we take to mean “Look!”— that the plant has not only survived the invasion but has managed, in the meantime, to produce a glorious, colorful bud.But then, nature once again asserts her central dictum of impermanence and constant change: The flower begins to wilt. With beautiful illustrations that are full of detail and whimsy, Carson Ellis has created an imaginative and quirky world, hidden away at the bottoms of the garden. Written in an entirely invented language, this playful book cleverly shows how meaning can be found even without understanding the words. A brilliant book for children who are making their first tentative steps in learning to read. A delightfully unique tale that his the possibility to change with every reading. * Carousel * EDIT: Carson Ellis tweeted @ me (which made my morning) and let me know that this one is actually “kids.” So I missed 1 out of 19. Not bad. After we finish, I ask them what they thought about it. They always tell me that, at first, it made them uncomfortable when they realized that the book wasn’t in their language, and they thought it would be hard to follow the story.