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NIGHT WISHES

Name: NIGHT WISHES
Author: Lee Bennett Hopkins
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5496-4

edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins ; illustrated by Jen Corace ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2020

A gentle, comforting ticket to beddy-bye—and good dreams.

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Thirteen poets contribute to a collection that buoys sleepy readers into dreamland.

Hopkins organizes the thematic anthology of 14 short poems (Rebecca Kai Dotlich contributes two), each told from the perspective of something in a child’s room. Accompanying double-page spreads expand each poem. The illustrations start with imaginative scenes starring a child of color and gently shift back to reality as day breaks and the child wakes up. The first two poems, “Bed” and “Pillow,” urge action, with phrases like “Climb in, child. / Climb in” and “Eyes closed, set sail!” Next “Blanket” wraps the child in love as they drift off. “Cat” and “Dog” each elicit a sense of wonder as the titular animals pose curious questions. Remaining poems such as “Rocking Horse” and “Stars” convey the push (“Hurry up, sun! / Hurry up, dawn!”) and pull (“No need to hurry— / we listen all night”) of the wait until morning. “Bed Again,” the final poem, encourages the child to “Step out and into day. / Get dressed, be on your way.” The consistent tone combining first-person narration with direct address unifies the disparate voices. Though each poem’s subject and title connect to something specific, Corace’s stylized illustrations include recurring characters and other thoughtful details for readers to discover. The jewel tones offer a soothing, subdued nighttime backdrop, as does the flat perspective. Diamond-patterned endpapers repeat the cover’s visual motif of dandelion seeds turned to stars.

A gentle, comforting ticket to beddy-bye—and good dreams. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-8028-5496-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Eerdmans

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
BLESS OUR PETS
edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins ; illustrated by Lita Judge

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CONSTRUCTION PEOPLE
edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins ; illustrated by Ellen Shi

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I REMEMBER
edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins

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MEAL OF THE STARS

POEMS UP AND DOWN

by Dana Jensen & illustrated by Tricia Tusa ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2012

Ambitious but flawed.

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Jensen’s debut yields 15 skinny poems, 10 of which are meant to be read from bottom to top.

The untitled poems’ subjects range from the lofty—stars and rockets—to the mundane—a winter jacket’s zipper, a ladybug’s hike up a dandelion stem. Each line consists of just one word. Neither punctuation nor capitalization appears, rendering natural breaks tricky to discern. A waterfall poem reads “roaring / crashing / sparkling / and / white / oh / what / a / thunder / heaving / its / mighty / heart / the / waterfall / splashes / out / its / lovely / blue / music / on / the / slippery / rocks / below.” Poems soar, as in one about a kite, but they can also fall a bit flat, without rising from reportage to evocative engagement. Tusa’s quirky watercolor-and-ink illustrations invite browsing; black-and-white vignettes alternate with full-color pages. Rather than visually extending the poems, the pictures seem catapulted beyond them: A simple verse narrating an elevator ride appears against a double-page spread showing the narrator in a penthouse with a rooftop pool, a deck with a swing and a bike, an open-air bedroom and fruit trees. The choice to depict successive children throughout rather than to visually capture a consistent narrator seems a missed opportunity in a title that could have profited from more cohesion.

Ambitious but flawed. (Picture book/poetry. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 20, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-547-39007-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

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KEEP A POCKET IN YOUR POEM

CLASSIC POEMS AND PLAYFUL PARODIES

by J. Patrick Lewis ; edited by J. Patrick Lewis ; illustrated by Johanna Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2017

Clever.

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A dozen classic poems, with Lewis’ playful revisions on the opposite pages.

The title poem is a reworking of Beatrice Schenk de Regniers’ “Keep a Poem in Your Pocket,” which touts the importance of imagination. The revision exalts the value of memories triggered by little objects—“red hawk feather, / silver penny, pinkie ring”—found in a pocket. Langston Hughes’ “Winter Sweetness” describes a snow-covered house as made of sugar. The revision, “Winter Warmth,” compares a book to a cup of hot cocoa on a frigid day. An excerpt from Jack Prelutsky’s “The Goblin” begins, “There’s a goblin as green / As a goblin can be.” Lewis begins “The Ogre” this way: “There’s an ogre as wide / As a flatbed truck.” He counters Robert Louis Stevenson’s two-line “Happy Thought” with a “Sleepy Thought”; David McCord’s “This is My Rock” becomes “This is My Tree.” Perhaps the cleverest revamping is that of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” In Lewis’ hands it becomes “Stopping by Fridge on a Hungry Evening.” (Said refrigerator is full of algae and mold and rotting food.) Lewis’ poems are a mixed bag—some come off poorly by comparison to their originals—but the book could provide wonderful inspiration for young would-be poets. Wright’s illustrations, in acrylic paint and ink on canvas, add much color, notably including the multiracial cast of children she depicts.

Clever. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)