The Lost Words (The Lost Works)

The Lost Words is incredibly beautiful, and inspires quiet contemplation of the natural world. The letters of each 'lost word' are cleverly imbedded in the illustrations, making this gorgeous book a great one to share with a child, and a pleasure for a person of any age. It seems to lift away the stresses of daily life, and lead the reader into a space of calm and wonder. I have given this book as a gift to young and old.

Beautiful illustrations in a lovely book to teach children “lost” words they might not be familiar with.

This book is absolutely beautiful. The purpose of the book touches my heart as an avid reader and self-proclaimed 'word-nerd'. The poetry and art-work are a delight. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, especially parents and teachers. I intend to purchase more copies for friends, grown children and grandchildren.

Having previously purchased a wonderful small book of poems and art by Macfarlane and Morris (The Lost Spells), I ordered The Lost Words, which is a very large (11"x15") volume of similar content. The Lost Words contains poems about words recently removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. The poems are thoughtful, sweet and occasionally amusing. The artwork is fabulous and fills many pages edge to edge. This is a beautiful book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys words, nature and gorgeous art.

I’ve bought this beautifully written & illustrated book 4 times, the last for my brother’s birthday. Such a fulfilling book, written to reach the reader deeply, showing how modern technological vocabulary & concepts are destroying our knowledge of nature to the point where younger people may not even know many animals & birds exist! The artwork is fabulous. This book is an amazing bargain, too. It makes a lovely, unusual, & affordable gift for literate people. Don’t hesitate to buy, because it can’t fail to fascinate.

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have created a wonderful book of “lost words”. These are a selection of twenty words describing nature ; many of these were dropped from a recent popular children’s dictionary. Each word has an acrostic poem, Macfarlane calls them spells, that gives the essence of that creature. These are accompanied by a pair of paintings by Jackie Morris. The words include some, like wren and otter, which are very familiar, and others less familiar, like conker and adder. The illustrations are superb. Although a book for children, I think adults, especially those interested in nature, will be enchanted by it.

Both the art and the poetry is STUNNING!!! I go back to read and to see almost daily. I saw. magpies in my back yard and was immediately. reminded of both the art and poetry that represented them and I wasthrilled over how well they were recreated. in picture and word.

Beautiful art, but I was disappointed because it’s more of a children’s book. I was expecting to READ a good story or at least a 300 page book with endless poems about nature. But don’t let the comments deceive you, when they say that the book is large it is not thick it is long and thin. Most importantly this book is expensive for what you get. I understand it’s two beautiful art styles, but most of the pages are empty and blank, and I don’t want a maybe less than 30 minute read gigantic hogging book on my bookshelf. And most likely once I read it I don’t think I will pick it up again. Once again the art is very admirable, but it’s most likely for children( even if they may not understand some of the poems.)