Vistas real and imagined blossom again in Stevenson and Foreman’s caring hands—but caregivers will want to choose the blooms...
A sumptuous reissue of the classic children’s collection.
First published in Great Britain in 1885, Stevenson’s “Garden,” Alexander McCall Smith tells readers in his enlightening new foreword, has been in print ever since. Given the privileged, white, colonialist perspective glimpsed in many of these 64 lyric poems, today’s audience may wonder what gives this volume such staying power. Stevenson’s nostalgia for the unfettered cares of childhood comes powerfully across throughout. Modern children may have a hard time envisioning his Victorian “Auntie’s Skirts” as “they trail behind her up the floor, / And trundle after through the door.” More problematically, his worldly vantage is shockingly dated at best: “Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, / Little frosty Eskimo, / Little Turk or Japanee, / O! don’t you wish that you were me?” But Stevenson’s ability to craft and describe other realms still soars, demonstrating that the imagination can transport one out of anything—illness, boredom, even loneliness. His crisp depictions of winter, causing “tingling thumbs,” and appreciation of the childhood hardship of having to go to bed in summer “When all the sky is clear and blue,” invite children of any age to “look / Through the windows of this book,” and “in another garden, play.”
Vistas real and imagined blossom again in Stevenson and Foreman’s caring hands—but caregivers will want to choose the blooms they share with care. (Poetry. 5-10)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-91095-910-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Otter-Barry
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Clever.
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)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59078-921-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
A masterful salute to fatherhood.
A collection of poetry that celebrates dads and all they do with and for their children.
The 15 poems collected here focus mostly on the tiny moments that mean so much to children and are remembered years later—the Sunday breakfasts shared between parent and child, the way dad dances his daughter around on his feet, the wrestling matches and playing catch, learning to ride a two-wheeler, and reading books together. A few are more generic: comparing dad to various animals, dad’s snoring, a cheer for dad, and one that looks at the many jobs dads have, though the narrator’s has the best—he stays at home. The line breaks and rhyme schemes make the poems accessible to those reading aloud, and the diverse array of people depicted, most of color, and different combinations (several father-and-child pairs are not of the same race) ensure that readers will find at least one like themselves in these pages. The torn-paper collages (with a few added items for buttons, a watch face, and wire-rim glasses) with no inked details mean that faces are blank slates, so the bulk of the emotion has to come from body positioning, posture, and the relations between figures on a page; Smith has mastered this, conveying so much with tilting heads and embracing arms.
A masterful salute to fatherhood. (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9189-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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