conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled To Every Thing There Is A Season about Leo, Caldecott, Medals with the genre: Children's Books, Religions.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Leo and the author have collaborated on 40 illustrated books and won a shelfful of major awards for their artistic work, including two Caldecott Medals. No surprise, then, that this book is a feast for the eyes--but it's remarkable even by their exalted standards. The text, printed in large, clear capitals along the bottom of the pages, consists simply of the famous verses from Ecclesiastes: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die...." Each phrase is illustrated by one of 16 panels, and each panel stems from the artistic style of a different culture, from Egyptian tomb friezes, to <a href="//www.amazon.com/g/illustrations/season.l.gif">Japanese harvest scenes</a>, to Aboriginal bark paintings, to Greek vase paintings. The rich, sophisticated illustrations may appeal more to parents than to their children--and verses like "a time to kill" may be too much for the very young--but there could be no more beautiful vehicle for the old wisdom that we have to know, expect, and live with both the good and the bad that life will inevitably bring us. At the end of the book the authors provide interesting information on the style and the art history behind each illustration. (Click to see a <a href="//www.amazon.com/g/illustrations/season.l.gif">sample spread</a>. Illustrations copyright 1998 by Leo &amp; the author. Permission from The Blue Sky Press, Scholastic, Inc.) (Ages 5 and older) --Richard Farr
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first paragraph for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: To Every Thing There Is A Season
  From the moment of its first appearance "To Every Thing There Is a Season" has been hailed as a classic story, one that will last for all time.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The sheep move in and out of their lean-to shelter, restlessly stamping their feet or huddling together in tightly packed groups. A conspiracy of wool against the cold. The hens perch high on their roosts with their feathers fluffed out about them, hardly feeling it worthwhile to descend to the floor for their few scant kernels of grain. The pig, who has little time before his butchering, squeals his displeasure to the cold and with his snout tosses his wooden trough high in the icy air. The splendid young horse paws the planking of his stall and gnaws the wooden cribwork of his manger.
  We have put a protective barricade of spruce boughs about our kitchen door and banked our house with additional boughs and billows of eel grass. Still, the pail of water we leave standing in the porch is solid in the morning and has to be broken with the hammer. The clothes my mother hangs on the line are frozen almost instantly and sway and creak from their suspending clothespins like sections of dismantled robots: the stiff-legged rasping trousers and the shirts and sweaters with unyielding arms outstretched. In the morning we race from our frigid upstairs bedrooms to finish dressing around the kitchen stove.
  We would extend our coldness half a continent away to the Great Lakes of Ontario so that it might hasten the Christmas coming of my oldest brother, Neil. He is nineteen and employed on the "lake boats," the long flat carriers of grain and iron ore whose season ends any day after December 10, depending on the ice conditions. We wish it to be cold, cold on the Great Lakes of Ontario, so that he may come home to us as soon as possible. Already his cartons have arrived. They come from different places: Cobourg, Toronto, St. Catharines, Welland, Windsor, Sarnia, Sault Ste. Marie. Places that we, with the exception of my father, have never been. We locate them excitedly on the map, tracing their outlines with eager fingers. The cartons bear the lettering of Canada Steamship Lines, and are bound with rope knotted intricately in the fashion of sailors. My mother says they contain his "clothes" and we are not allowed to open them.
  For us it is impossible to know the time or manner of his coming. If the lakes freeze early, he may come by train because it is cheaper. If the lakes stay open until December 20, he will have to fly because his time will be more precious than his money. He will hitchhike the last sixty or hundred miles from either station or airport. On our part, we can do nothing but listen with straining ears to radio reports of distant ice formations. His coming seems to depend on so many factors which are out there far beyond us and over which we lack control.
  There are three other young men with him who look much the same as he. They, too, are from the boats and are trying to get home to Newfoundland. They must still drive a hundred miles to reach the ferry at North Sydney. The car seems very old. They purchased it in Thorold for two hundred dollars because they were too late to make any reservations, and they have driven steadily since they began. In northern New Brunswick their windshield wipers failed, but instead of stopping they tied lengths of cord to the wipers' arms and passed them through the front window vents. Since that time, in whatever precipitation, one of them has pulled the cords back and forth to make the wipers function. This information falls tiredly but excitedly from their lips and we greedily gather it in. My father pours them drinks of rum and my mother takes out her mincemeat and the fruitcakes she has been carefully hoarding. We lean on the furniture or look from the safety of sheltered doorways. We would like to hug our brother but are too shy with strangers present. In the kitchen's warmth, the young men begin to nod and doze, their heads dropping suddenly to their chests. They nudge each other with their feet in an attempt to keep awake. They will not stay and rest because they have come so far and tomorrow is Christmas Eve and stretches of mountains and water still lie between them and those they love. After they leave we pounce upon our brother physically and verbally. He laughs and shouts and lifts us over his head and swings us in his muscular arms. Yet in spite of his happiness he seems surprised at the appearance of his father, whom he has not seen since March. My father merely smiles at him, while my mother bites her lip.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last three paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Alistair MacLeod has given lectures and readings from his work in many cities in Canada and around the world. He and his wife, Anita, have six children and two grandchildren. They live in Windsor.
  His grandmother was an accomplished artist, a creator of prized hooked rugs, and young Peter's drawings and paintings were so promising that some of his work was published when he was in high school. He then took a B.A. at St. Francis Xavier University and moved to Halifax, where he became a professional artist.
  In time he returned to Cape Breton to become a fisherman, but he combines that work with his life as an artist. Traditional Cape Breton rural life is his favourite subject, and he has written, "I enjoy taking part in the work of a rural lifestyle, from working in the boats, the woods, the farm, carpentry or whatever. I feel that my artwork can then have that authenticity that comes from knowing and doing."