While the Irish connections are often opaque, repeated recitations are a must.
Webb and McCarthy present 69 nursery rhymes, poems, songs, and verses in a humorously illustrated read-aloud anthology.
The subtitle is meant literally, as the anthologist is Irish, rather than as a promise of all-Irish content. Many familiar and not iconically Irish rhymes, such as “She’ll Be Coming ’round the Mountain” and “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear,” are here, as well as Irish staples like “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” Many of the verses selected are anonymous, but in addition to William Butler Yeats, such Irish notables as James Joyce and Padraic Colum are included. Non-Irish poets of renown also appear, with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Happy Thought” and Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat,” among others. Although Webb’s introduction alludes to research that yields Irish connections, she provides little expatiation beyond informing readers that Irish-born labor organizer Mother Jones may have been that woman coming around that mountain. One verse per page is the norm, although on occasion a second complementing verse or one-liner is added. For example, Oscar Wilde’s “Symphony in Yellow,” about a yellow omnibus crawling across a bridge like a yellow butterfly, shares a page with the quip “What is a butterfly? At best, he’s but a caterpillar dressed.” Digitally composed illustrations featuring cartoonishly quirky animal and human characters (racially diverse) in muted, opaque colors decorate the book.
While the Irish connections are often opaque, repeated recitations are a must. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-84717-794-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: O'Brien Press/Dufour Editions
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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
Effectively soporific, though less broadly diverse in culture than casting.
Intricate cut-paper borders and figures accompany a set of sleepy-time lyrics and traditional rhymes.
Aside from “All the Pretty Little Ponies,” which is identified as “possibly African American,” the selections are a mostly Eurocentric sampling. It’s a mix of familiar anonymous rhymes (“Oh, how lovely is the evening,” “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, / Bless this bed that I lie on”) and verses from known authors, including Jane Taylor’s “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (first verse only), Robert Louis Stevenson’s “My Bed is a Boat,” and Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Seal’s Lullaby.” Melodramatic lullabies such as “Rockabye Baby” have been excluded in favor of more pacifistic poems, and in keeping with the cozy tone (though she does show one cat looming hungrily over a mouse hole), Dalton enfolds each entry in delicately detailed sprays of leaves or waves, graceful garlands of flowers, flights of butterflies, and tidy arrangements of natural or domestic items, all set against black or dark backgrounds that intensify the soft colors. A parade of young people—clad in nightclothes and diverse of facial features, hair color and texture, and skin hue—follow a childlike, white angel on the endpapers and pose drowsily throughout.
Effectively soporific, though less broadly diverse in culture than casting. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1673-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
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