A Year in Story &Song by Lia Leendertz
A Year in Story & Song
by Lia Leendertz
was published on 9th May 2024 by Gaia/ Octopus Books.
My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to
Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour.
Synopsis
A Year in Story and Song is a captivating collection of stories and songs that celebrates the seasons. We humans love stories. We love to hear them and to tell them, around fires and by bedsides, and we love to use them to make sense of the world around us. The seasons, in all their ever-changing variety, give us many opportunities for storytelling: the full moons and their names, Epiphany in January, St Patrick's Day in March, May Day, Midsummer, Halloween and more. They feature mischievous boggarts and fairies, saints and sailors, leprechauns and dragons, pilgrimages and charms, milk maids and rose queens, Robin Hood and the green man. The songs range from shanties and love songs, to bawdy ballads and wassails, to carols and rounds, and have been sung for hundreds of years, often at particular moments in the calendar. This is a book to treasure all year, every year.
My Review
As a huge fan of Lia’s Almanacs I was excited to be given the opportunity to read and review A Year in Story & Song and I wasn’t disappointed. From the moment I received the book and saw the beautiful, gold embossed green cover depicting so many images from the stories that you will find within I was hooked. So much so that I have been surprised at the restraint that I have shown in only reading the relevant month so that I can have a little treat every month as I turn the pages and find out what the new stories for the month are along with songs to learn and entertain myself with.
So starting with May I have learnt about the naming of May plus Robin Hood and the Green Man whilst singing a song for International Workers Day on the 1st May entitled “Solidarity Forever”. The snippets of information you pick up from reading this book related to folk lore and customs is incredibly interesting and is made more so by the fact that you don’t need to plough through loads of pages but can read a few pages each month and learn so much.
I sincerely hope that this is not just a one off book and that we can expect more in this context in the years to come .
About the Author
Lia Leendertz is an award-winning garden and food writer based in Bristol. She presents a monthly podcast, 'As the Season Turns', about what to look out for in the month ahead and writes a free monthly newsletter, 'Lia's Living Almanac', which you can sign up for at the address below. Her reinvention of the traditional rural almanac has become an annual must-have for readers eager to connect with the seasons, appreciate the outdoors and discover ways to mark and celebrate each month.
www.lialeendertz.com
instagram.com/lia_leendertz
twitter.com/lialeendertz
lialeendertz.substack.com
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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