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HERE IS MY HEART

Name: HERE IS MY HEART
Author: William Jay Smith
ISBN: 0-316-19765-3

LOVE POEMS

edited by William Jay Smith & illustrated by Jane Dyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999

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Smith has gathered often humorous, always amorous poems from the traditional to the new, from contributors with household names to the poetically omnipresent Anonymous. Among the stellar items are selections by Langston Hughes (“I could take the Harlem night/and wrap around you,/Take the neon lights and make a crown”), Kenneth Koch (“One day the Nouns were clustered in the streets./An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty”), Donald Hall (“Chipmunks jump, and/Greensnakes slither./Rather burst than/Not be with her”), and Robert Frost (“The rose is a rose,/And was always a rose,/But the theory now goes/That the apple’s a rose,/And the pear is, and so’s/The plum, I suppose”—playing on the old rhyme “If Apples Were Pears,” which is also included). Cock Robin is here, as are such characters as the Old Woman and the Marmalade Man; Jack Prelutsky and William Shakespeare also make appearances, and so does the former poet laureate himself: “Now touch the air softly,/Swing gently the broom./I’ll love you till windows/Are all of a room.” Dyer contributes delicate, colored pencil drawings to the book, which is about the same size as a valentine. (index) (Poetry. 4-10)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-316-19765-3

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
UP THE HILL AND DOWN
edited by William Jay Smith & illustrated by Allan Eitzen

- BOOK REVIEW
BEHIND THE KING'S KITCHEN
by William Jay Smith & translated by Carol Ra & illustrated by Jacques Hnizdovsky

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TALES FOR VERY PICKY EATERS

by Josh Schneider & illustrated by Josh Schneider ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2011

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Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)

Pub Date: May 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
ULTRABOT'S FIRST PLAYDATE
by Josh Schneider ; illustrated by Josh Schneider

- BOOK REVIEW
KID AMAZING VS. THE BLOB
by Josh Schneider ; illustrated by Josh Schneider

- BOOK REVIEW
EVERYBODY SLEEPS (BUT NOT FRED)
by Josh Schneider ; illustrated by Josh Schneider

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ABIYOYO RETURNS

by Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs & illustrated by Michael Hays ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001

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The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)