THE SKY IS FULL OF SONG

Beginning with autumn and Lucille Clifton's ""September"" ("". . . I went to school every day last year,/why do I have to go again?"") and ending with the end of summer and Prince Redcloud's ""Now"" ("". . . Close the picnic./Close the pool./Close the summer./Open school""), Hopkins takes readers around the year with an anthology of short, slight, seasonal poems, almost all of them by the familiar fraternity of poets for children: Judith Thurman, David McCord, Myra Cohn Livingston, Charlotte Zolotow, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Hillert, Sara Teasdale, Hopkins himself. Aileen Fisher is represented with ""How do they know,"" ""Fall Wind,"" and ""Snowy Benches"" (""Do parks get lonely/in winter perhaps,/when benches have only/snow on their laps?""). Karla Kuskin contributes a more bracing ""Days That the Wind Takes Over"" ("". . . Blowing my hair out/Blowing my heart apart/Blowing high in my head. . ."") as well as ""Sitting in the Sand,"" about a child scooping up ""a sip of ocean."" It's a pleasant enough but innocuous collection, with a very few unexpected lines or images breaking through. Zimmer's color woodcuts make attractive accents.