Fifteen poets, from Emily Dickinson to Karla Kuskin, celebrate the pleasures of communicating, while Barbour underscores those pleasures with dazzling, sometimes kaleidoscopic scenes of open books and stylized, often unusually colored human or animal figures. Hopkins has gathered a mix of new poems and reprints: Eve Merriam offers a “Metaphor”: “Morning is / a new sheet of paper / ”; Pat Mora has a tumble of “Words Free As Confetti”; the McKissacks urge children to “Share The Adventure” of reading; Kuskin of “Finding a Poem”; and Ann Whitford Paul of being a “Word Builder.” Alice Schertle contributes a gem about the surreal effects of “Writing Past Midnight,” and Richard Armour’s disquisition on “The Period” provides an apt close. Like Eloise Greenfield’s similarly themed In the Land of Words (2003), this will draw plenty of readers and listeners with its bright colors, and bright words. (Poetry. 7-12)
