I write. When I’m happy or sad or completely pissed off or trying to figure something out. Some of that writing stays in my journal. Some finds its way into my blog. Some finds its way into my books.
Take Care started as a simple poem to remind young children — and myself — that it’s up to us to take care of the world and of each other. I wrote it two years ago, a response to the things I was losing sleep over in the news: the Paris attacks, the bombing in Turkey, the nightclub shooting in Orlando. At the same time, I’d been doing some distressing research about the earth for a science fiction book I’d been working on. If I sat down to write after looking at today’s news — or last month’s or last year’s — I would have written the same poem, which, despite the paragraph you just read, is actually optimistic.
The poem begins:
Take care of the world
Of the mountains and trees
Tend to the world
All the bumbles and bees
Albert Whitman and illustrator Giuliana Gregori turned the poem into a book. Kirkus said that though this version is not religious, it reads like a prayer. I’m good with that.
I asked Giuliana, who is not on social media, what I should tell people about the book. “This is the only planet we’ve got and everything starts from each of us,” she said. I told her I’d pass it on. We hope that you’ll pass it on, too.
Take care,
Madelyn
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