Hildegard of Bingen: Scientist, Composer, Healer, & Saint

Demi tells the luminous story of St. Hildegard of Bingen who, as a child, “saw lights, and inside those lights were pictures of Heaven” and could tell the future. Cloistered due to terrible headaches, Hildegard becomes a nun at 18, and her visions persist until she hears the voice of God beseeching her to “let your inside lights shine out.” In response, she writes about the world she sees in her mind’s eye as well as works about natural history, medicine, and cookery. Her gifts to the world, including an invented alphabet and language, are also creative in nature: “So great was Hildegard’s secret land of lights, so energetic, so brilliant, and so full of ideas, that Hildegard was able to compose seventy-seven symphonic songs and an operatic morality play.” Demi illustrates this passionate tribute in her characteristic art style, blending spare, open space; inky figurinelike forms; and ornate celestial accents. Ages 4–8.[em] (Apr.) [/em]