WHY AM I GROWN SO COLD: Poems of the Unknowable

As with other theme collections for young people, the contents list evokes a subject guide rather than any particular sensibility. If variety is a virtue, then this will serve. Readers will turn the page from Shakespeare to Shel Silverstein, and can choose from among Eskimo and Indian chants, Ezra Pound, John Keats, and X. J. Kennedy. There is Robert Graves' teasing ""Welsh Episode"" and a song from The Hobbit. (But do we need all that Tennyson?) The mood varies too, from uneasy musing to Halloween-shivery to more powerful incantations, but the topic gives it more unity and probably more appeal than such themes as school or family have brought to other YA collections. This is not a collection that opens closed doors, but a safe bet for Halloween and for kids drawn to the otherworldly.