THE MIDNIGHT DANCE OF THE SNOWSHOE HARE: Poems of Alaska

by Nancy White Carlstrom ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 1998

This collection of poems celebrates Alaska's spring and summer seasons, when daylight lasts 24 hours, and when the usually white landscape is transformed into an abundance of flora. Carlstrom (Raven and River, 1997, etc.) has composed brief, direct poems in which the sun, trees, rivers, and animals sing, pray, question, warn, and wonder at a world released from snow and ice. The verses often make effective use of two voices or a repeated refrain, e.g., in the evocative ""Song of the Aspen Aunties,"" the trees shake their leaves throughout the long evening of midnight sun: ""Whispering/Whispering/All night long./Where is the darkness?/ Where has it gone?/Why does the day/Go on and on?"" Most poems are presented in double-page spreads with Kuroi's haunting paintings; they occasionally become sentimentally soil and fuzzy, but more often lyrically conjure a sunny Alaskan landscape.

Pub Date: May 18, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998

Categories: CHILDREN'S