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EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Name: EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Author: Frances Schoonmaker
ISBN: 0-8069-5928-2

edited by Frances Schoonmaker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2000

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As a bare introduction to Millay’s poetry, this entry in the Poetry for Young People series is adequate, but should not be a substitute for other biographies or analyses of her work. Schoonmaker (Carl Sandburg, 1995) has written a four-page introduction to Millay’s life before arranging a selection of more than 30 poems. In the narrative of Millay’s childhood she includes many good details of her life at home (with a long explanation of her name, Vincent), but is silent on the topic of Millay’s “bohemian” adult life, and more importantly, how the unconventional views of her poetry gave voice to the young generation of the roaring 20s. She reports that Millay’s wealthy husband was a feminist, but not that Millay was, and offers no explanation of how her poetry reflected her strong convictions. In fact, although the book includes a good assortment of Millay’s poetry, the format allows for almost no interpretation, particularly of the more “adult” poems that are include, e.g., “First Fig,” and “Second Fig.” Even if Schoonmaker chose not to venture into the charged territory of Millay’s sexuality, there’s no indication of how small verses such as these expressed in two lines the explosion of new freedoms for women. By placing the poems into safe, pastel-colored, greeting-card context, she leaves readers with a false portrait of who the poet was. (Poetry. 9-12)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-8069-5928-2

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Sterling

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST CRYSTAL
by Frances Schoonmaker

- BOOK REVIEW
THE RED ABALONE SHELL
by Frances Schoonmaker

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BLACK ALABASTER BOX
by Frances Schoonmaker

THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF AMERICAN CHILDREN'S POEMS

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THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF AMERICAN CHILDREN'S POEMS

by Donald Hall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 11, 1999

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Hall (The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse in America, 1985, etc.), offers up a chestnut-flavored alternative for younger readers, matching roughly contemporary illustrations to one or two selections from each of 57 American poets. To the usual suspects—Eugene Field’s “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” Emily Dickinson’s “I’m nobody, who are you?” and even Carl Sandburg’s “Fog”—he adds more recent works from the likes of Jack Prelutsky, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, and Janet S. Wong; he also includes three poems attributed somewhat baldly to an “Anonymous Native American.” The art comprises a gallery of American illustration, from crude 18th-century woodcuts, through Jessie Willcox Smith, to Marcia Brown and the Dillons. Writing that “poetry is most poetry when it makes noise,” Hall recommends these verses for reading aloud and memorization, exhorting parents and children to appreciate how they “preserve a moment of the American past.” A safe collection, seldom veering from the canon. (index) (Poetry. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1999

ISBN: 0-19-512373-5

Page Count: 93

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MILKMAN'S BOY
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Greg Shed

- BOOK REVIEW
OLD HOME DAY
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN WILLARD MET BABE RUTH
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Barry Moser

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HERE COMES MOTHER GOOSE

edited by Iona Opie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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This oversized companion to the much ballyhooed My Very First Mother Goose (1996) will take toddlers and ex-toddlers deeper into the playscapes of the language, to meet Old King Cole, Old Mother Hubbard, and Dusty Bill From Vinegar Hill; to caper about the mulberry bush, polka with My Aunt Jane, and dance by the light of the moon. Mixing occasional humans into her furred and feathered cast, Wells creates a series of visual scenarios featuring anywhere from one big figure, often dirty or mussed, to every single cat on the road to St. Ives (over a thousand). Opie cuts longer rhymes down to two or three verses, and essays a sly bit of social commentary by switching the answers to what little girls and boys are made of. Though Wells drops the ball with this last, legitimizing the boys’ presence in a kitchen by dressing them as chefs, in general the book is plainly the work of a match made in heaven, and merits as much popularity as its predecessor. (Folklore. 1-6)