Jennifer Berne - On Wings of Words: The Extraordinary Life of Emily Dickinson

To the mystery that is Emily J . B .
For Mom and Dad B . S .

Text copyright 2020 by Jennifer Berne .
Illustrations copyright 2020 by Becca Stadtlander .
All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher .

Emily Dickinson Daguerreotype courtesy of the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data :

Names : Berne , Jennifer , author . | Stadtlander , Becca illustrator .
Title : On wings of words : the extraordinary life of Emily Dickinson / by Jennifer Berne ; illustrated by Becca Stadtlander .
Description : San Francisco : Chronicle Books , 2020 .
Identifiers : LCCN 2017033710 | ISBN 9781452142975 (hc) , 9781452172057 (epub2) , 9781452172071 (epub3) , 9781452172064 (Kindle)
Subjects : LCSH : Dickinson , Emily , 1830-1886Juvenile literature . | Poets , American19th centuryBiographyJuvenile literature .
Classification : LCC PS1541 . Z5 B445 2017 | DDC 811/ . 4 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033710

Design by Amelia Mack and Jill Turney .
Typeset in Walker and Becca Wings .
The illustrations in this book were rendered in gouache and watercolor .

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Soft moonlit snow draped the Dickinson house in white .

It reaches to the Fence
It wraps it, Rail by Rail,
Till it is lost in Fleeces
It flings a Crystal Veil

In a little roomin the dark before dawn

a baby girl was born .

Her parents celebrated the holiday

they called Emily .

Emily met the world . And began to explore .

To little Emily , every bird , every flower , every bee
or breeze or slant of light seemed to speak to her .

She explored with her eyes , her ears , her thoughts

and found new words for
everything she was discovering .

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly...
The brooks laugh louder
when I come.

When thunder crashed
and lightning flashed ,
Emily got scared and called it ...

the fire.

Emily adored her older brother , Austin .
She said , there was always such
a Hurrah wherever he was.

She loved her school friends , who she said were ...

A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.

Every day Emily ' s life rippled with new joys .
And swayed with new feelings .

It was clear Emily was becoming a person
in many ways like other peopleonly more so .

Her happys were happier . Her sads were sadder .

Her thoughts were deeper . Her desires were stronger .

And oh , there was so much that Emily loved .

My heart grows light so fast that I could
mount a grasshopper and gallop around the
world, and not fatigue him any!

Most of all , Emily loved her books .

The strongest friends
of the soulBOOKS.

To Emily every book was an adventure , a distant
journey on a sea of words . And if a book was
forbidden , well , that didn ' t stop Emily ...

Like the book she wanted , that Austin smuggled into
the house and hid inside the piano . Emily rushed it
up to her room and read it in delicious secrecy .

Every story she read at night by candlelight , or in the
garden ' s midday sun , was a new passiona ray of light .

But there were shadows , too .
In the 1800s , sorrow was a
daily companion .
The sorrow of
diseases incurable ,
accidents untreatable .
And deaths too soon ,
too close .

All this frightened Emily .
And flooded her mind
with questions .

Emily tried to
find answers
at home .

She looked
for answers at
her church .

She searched for
answers at school .

But everywhere she looked ,
she was told to obey without asking ,
to believe without knowing why .

So she began to put her faith in
what she could see and understand .

In the name of the Bee
and of the Butterfky
and of the BreezeAmen!

When her very religious school principal
separated the class into Hopers and No-Hopers ,
Emily was put in the group without hope .
Yet Emily did have hope . Her own kind :

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stopsat all

Sowith her hope
she sought her truth .

I am out with lanterns,
looking for myself.

Thenlike rays of sun breaking
through the clouds

her thoughts and feelings
started to come to her as words .

New words .

Her own words .

The robins , bumblebees , and daisies she
lovedthe dark diseases and frightening
deathsthe unknowable God and