A BRIGHTER GARDEN

An attractive introduction to a favorite poet whose close relationship with nature recommends her lovely, concise verse to children. Twenty-three selections, all but nine of them excerpts from longer poems, are grouped by the four seasons and accompanied by sweet (but not saccharine), pleasantly meditative paintings in oval frames. Landscape predominates, though a figure who might be the poet often appears. Ackerman's introductory tribute to ""the completely original way in which [Dickinson] wrote about ordinary things"" is phrased with admirable grace and simplicity. Some of the excerpts are much too brief to suggest the flavor of their sources, and the reader must check the index to discover that these are truncated samples; still, an unusually appealing first glimpse of one of the American greats.