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The Touchstone Center

The Touchstone Center for Children, a nonprofit educational organization founded in New York City in 1969 by its present director, Richard Lewis, was established in the belief that all persons have natural creative, imaginative and artistic capacities, which when encouraged and allowed to develop, find unique expression in each individual.

Through its Arts and Education Projects, the Center creates interdisciplinary arts programs in classrooms which explore the role of the imagination and poetic thought as pivotal to all learning.

In addition the Center conducts Workshops and Seminars for adults on the role of the imagination within the learning process and how, at all levels of education, the use of elemental themes and images based on natural phenomena can strengthen and awaken our human relationship to the natural world.

The Center's Publications Program has been concerned with documenting and reflecting upon the imaginative efforts of children and adults who have participated in the Center's activities, as well as creating and republishing books of poetry and myth from a wide spectrum of cultures.

The Archival Project, as part of the Center's publishing program, is an extensive collection of children's writings and artwork &endash; as well as audio, video tapes, photographs and documents related to the history, philosophy, and work of the Center. As part of the Center's Thirtieth Anniversary, The Archival Project published 1969-1999, A Thirtieth Anniversary Overview of Activities and Sources of Funding and Support.

Upcoming Activities include forthcoming programs in the Center's Arts and Education Projects, Workshops and Seminars, and recent and future Publications.

Biographical information about the Center's staff is included in Staff of the Center.

The Touchstone Center for Children

141 East 88th Street

New York, New York 10128

(212) 831-7717

(212) 427-9644 (Fax)

rlewis212@aol.com

I don't want to lure you further into this one with kids' pictures, programs and such, because you HAVE to go to his! So do not pass Go, do not collect $200, just go IMMEDIATELY to the green hyperlink above and revel in Richard's richnesses! If you really like kids (as Richard does), you'll never look back.

I do need, however, to add information about Richard's wonderful books! You can order them all from his Center, although one of them is on Amazon.con. Here they are:

Touchstone Center Publications is a direct outgrowth of The Touchstone Center's activities and workshops in schools, museums and environmental centers. Publications range from traditional books to illustrated booklets, to posters and poster-books, and video and audio tapes. The Center's aim in publishing and distributing is to preserve children's original writings and art, to document, comment and reflect upon the poetic and imaginative process in learning, and to create and republish books of poetry and myth from a wide spectrum of cultures.

* On The Imagination and Poetry of Childhood

Living by Wonder:

The Imaginative Life of Childhood

By Richard Lewis

Parabola Books / Touchstone Center Publications, 1998

In this group of twenty essays, spanning over two decades of work with children and adults, Richard Lewis looks at the life of the imagination of childhood. Exploring various facets of children's play, art, stories, poetry and language-making each of these essays attests to the importance of nurturing and supporting the imagination as a necessary part of all learning. Addressed to anyone concerned with the emotional, spiritual and intellectual life of childhood, Living By Wonder is a compelling and timely statement.

"This book is excitingly rich...On every page are thoughts and phrases that like pebbles tossed into a pool set our adult minds in motion with the possibilities of language and imagination."

 

• hardcover • $18.95

 

&emdash;Ellen Dissanayake, author and teacher.

"In this lovely book, Richard Lewis demystifies the child's imagination while capturing its poetic spirit."

&emdash;Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"The book centers on children, but one hopes passionately that adults will lay it to heart also. Do we not need it just as much?"

&emdash;Elizabeth Sewell, educator and author

"Richard Lewis has retained a rare and almost uncanny sense of the experience of childhood. He combines this with immense sensitivity to the language and thinking of young children today. The result is a wonderfully engaging and life-affirming book that will both delight and provide practical help to anyone who spends time with children."

&emdash;Kieran Egan, Simon Fraser University

"If any teacher is tempted to abandon the arts in favor of focusing on raising test scores in rote ways, please read this book to renew your commitment to the imaginative and emotional needs of your students."

&emdash;Dee Dickinson, New Horizons for Learning Journal

"....these heartfelt essays will give readers a new respect for the 'heroic' quality of a child's imagination."

&emdash;Publishers Weekly

160 pages • hardcover • $18.95

 

When Thought Is Young:

Reflections on Teaching and the

Poetry of the Child

By Richard Lewis

New Rivers Press, 1992

A series of personal reflections on the emerging poetic consciousness of childhood, illustrated by the author's daughter and accompanied by children's writings. Touching upon the beginnings of language, play, and the inward awareness of children, this book is a way of understanding childhood from the vantage point of the phenomena of childhood itself.

"I was entranced by this beautiful, thoughtful book which evokes the mystery of child life as few have.... A book for parents, for teachers, for us all to wonder at and enjoy, and muse over."

Seonaid Robertson, teacher and author

"A small but profound book about the poetic nature of the young child ....."

&emdash;Parent and Preschooler Newsletter

"An amazing, enchanting and beautifully constructed book...."

&emdash;Anne Wright, teacher and author

72 pages • paperbound • $7.95 •

 

Miracles:

Poems by Children of the

English-speaking World.

Collected by Richard Lewis

Simon and Schuster, 1966

A pioneering collection of nearly 200 poems that reveal the excitement, wonder, and rich imaginative power of children. The writers are all between the ages of five and thirteen and come from a wide variety of backgrounds &endash; the United States, New Zealand, Ireland, Kenya, Uganda, Canada, England, Australia, India and the Philippines. But they have one thing in common: they are all children who, for the brief moment of a poem, have spoken with the intensity, vision and artistry of the poet.

"Fresh, glowing, cascading on the senses..."

&emdash;Sylvia Ashton-Warner, NY Times Book Review

"All libraries will want this book for the vision of its young authors; all adults will want to read these poems for the pure delight of it..."

&emdash;Library Journal

Sorry, you'd better write Richard for the price. The website cut short before giving it, at least on my computer!

 

Each Sky Has Its Words

by Richard Lewis

Illustrations by Gigi Alvaré

Touchstone Center Publications

This one needs a separate page, because of the illustrations. Go!

Also, take a look at his book, The Bird of Imagining, which is also available at the bookstore

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