This collection of seasonal poetry by the late Esbensen (The Night Rainbow, not reviewed, etc.) was previously published in the ’60s in a slightly longer length with black and white illustrations. This new edition of 20 poems uses a different artist to illustrate the poems for each of the four seasons, requiring the necessary visual adjustment to shifting artistic styles inherent in this format. In the first section, Cheng-Khee Chee chose mossy greens and grays for his springtime watercolor illustrations, with the impressionistic, misty overtones of a wet, early spring. For the summer selections, Janice Lee Porter’s acrylic paintings incorporate lush tones and curving lines to illustrate the fullness of the season in poems about a vacant lot, ripe pears, and a sudden storm. Mary GrandPré, illustrator of the American edition of the Harry Potter stories, illustrated the autumn poems in fall hues on deep-toned backgrounds that convey the spooky side of the season, concluding with a transitional poem that predicts the changes inherent in winter. Caldecott Medalist Stephen Gammell effectively captures the mood of northern winters in his bright white and deep blue paintings, with splashes of flying snowflakes. Some of the volume’s best poems celebrate the serious winters of Esbensen’s home state of Minnesota, with an eerie ode called “The Wind Woman” and a memorable final poem about a little girl walking through deep snow at night. Almost all of the short poems rhyme, but the varied and sophisticated rhyme schemes show the range of the poet’s extraordinary talent. (biographical notes, publisher note) (Poetry. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-87614-143-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
A sweet and quiet homage to friendship, nature, and the power of words and poetry.
A little girl enjoys writing poems and gets an unexpected surprise when she writes a poem and gives it to a tree, making “the world more splendid."
Sylvia marks the end of winter with a poem about springtime. After reading it to a squirrel, she ties it to a tree (“hoping that it didn’t count as littering”). When she passes the tree on her way to school the next day, she finds a surprise—another poem on the tree. “She never imagined the tree might write back.” Sylvia continues to write poems to the tree and waits to find the next poem. When she realizes a teasing classmate, Walt, is the author of the other poems, she is sad: “Had the tree she loved so much not given her a thing?” Not too unsurprisingly, the two poets become friends, harmoniously trading rhymes beneath the tree that has brought them together. Using precise, intelligent prose, Reynolds captures moments of a child’s innocence: “ ‘So what’s your name?’ Sylvia asked the tree. But the tree stood in silence. ‘Are you shy like me?’ The tree nodded in the breeze. Sylvia understood.” Maydani’s delicate, pencil-and-watercolor paintings, suffused with spring pastels, affectionately invest Sylvia (who has brown skin), Walt (who presents white), and even the tree with personality.
A sweet and quiet homage to friendship, nature, and the power of words and poetry. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-53912-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A warm and welcoming Hanukkah story.
Come celebrate the joys and traditions of Hanukkah in this poetry collection.
The cover of this exuberant book hints at the fun within as a group of diverse children play a game of dreidel with a menorah shining behind them indicating that it’s the first night of Hanukkah. Steinberg’s poems guide young readers through various aspects of the holiday, explaining its origins in biblical days with the Maccabees fighting to recapture the temple and the miracle of the small amount of oil burning for eight days and nights. Steinberg then focuses on a modern family’s celebration, including the lighting of the candles with the shammes, the presents stacked and ready to open, the rules of the dreidel game, the food, and the wonderful, noisy, loving togetherness that pervades it all. Attempts to take family selfies by the menorah are a hilarious failure. Then there’s the endless debate over the right condiment to accompany the latkes, with family members declaring themselves Team Applesauce or Team Sour Cream. The poems, generally in simple abcb rhymes, capture the family’s love and pride in their religious traditions. Palacios’ cartoonish art depicts characters with a wide variety of skin tones and hair colors and who vary in age, complementing and enhancing the text. Stickers with illustrations from the book are appended. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A warm and welcoming Hanukkah story. (Picture-book poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-09426-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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