Time Is a Flower

“Time is the tick tick tock/ of the/ clock/ and/ numbers and words on a calendar.// But what else is time?” This ethereal book of ideas by Morstad (Girl on a Motorcycle) captures variations on how time passes in lyrical writing and images that offer moments of wonder and change. Multimedia spreads capture the way that time can be seen in the movement of sun across the floor, the rising of bread dough, the growth of flora: “Time is a tree./ While it grows, so do you./ Who will be taller in two years?/ In ten years?” In one spread, Morstad draws an inclusive array of maturing faces, starting with children and imagining them aging into young people or middle-aged people with lined skin: “Time is a face whose lines and shapes change little by little, year by year.” Other spreads show how the temporal can move quickly or slowly, be caught in an image and suspended, and even visualized (“Is time a line? Or maybe a circle?”), before the book’s end cleverly brings readers right into a specific moment in a child’s day: dinnertime. A conceptual meditation, winsome and enigmatic. Ages 3–7. [em]Agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management. (Sept.) [/em]