# 17 WHAT FOREST KNOWS
| Author : | George Ella Lyon HARLAN, KY |
| Artist : | Pamela McDaniel LEXINGTON, KY |
| Sponsor : | Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning |
George Ella Lyon (1949): What Forest Knows
George Ella Lyon is a native of Harlan, Ky., and has published in a variety of genres, including picture books, young adult books, poetry, juvenile novels, and drama. She has edited five collections of poetry and fiction. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Best Book of the Year award from Publisher’s Weekly. She was educated at Centre College, the University of Arkansas, and Indiana University, and served as Kentucky Poet Laureate. Lyon’s 2014 What Forest Knows is an illustrated book of free verse that explores the wonders of the Earth as it orbits the Sun. Most importantly, she notes, the forest demonstrates how all living things interact in a delicate balance.
Pamela McDaniel:
BOOKBENCHESLEX.ORG
I chose What Forest Knows because I have always been inspired to acknowledge the beauty and intricacy of the nature that surrounds us. I used my interpretations of the illustrations in this book by George Ella Lyon to create the “rhythms of the seasons” on this bench. The floating leaves create a feeling of movement, change, and adaptation, which is to me, the epitome of “what a forest knows”. Pamela Graham McDaniel works as a full-time artist in her Lexington, Ky., studio.