A rich, if skimpy, portion of reprinted verse, this pairs generally cheery scenes of children and grownups chowing down around tables, on a picnic blanket, in a tub, and sundry other venues, with the likes of Russell Hoban’s encomium to a “Friendly Cinnamon Bun,” and Lewis Carroll’s to “Beautiful Soup.” Dads come off as clueless in Michael Rosen’s title poem and John Ciardi’s “Mommy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast.” Best is Douglas Florian’s plea to “Send my spinach / Off to Spain. / Parcel post it / On a train. / Mail it, / Sail it / On a ship. / Just don’t let it / Touch my lip.” The contents are available elsewhere, and the theme’s a popular one, but this is still worth dishing up to readers whose appetites aren’t sated by the likes of Lee Bennett Hopkins’s Yummy! Eating Through a Day (2000) or William Cole’s classic Poem Stew (1981). (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: April 19, 2004
ISBN: 0-618-31554-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nineteen poems, some rhymed, are paired with So’s (Countdown to Spring, p. 50, etc.) ink drawings. The poems are sometimes dry and sometimes didactic, but most are straightforward and occasionally giddy. So’s art is by turns whimsical, wild, or reticent. The title comes from “Burrows” a poem about the creatures that live under the “roof” of the earth: rabbits, foxes, snakes. The image of a dragon under the volcano in “Dormant Dragons” is beautifully realized as So turns wash and squiggle into the beast. “Winter Solstice” connects a wintry day in America with the first day of summer in Australia most charmingly. In “Go-Betweens”: “They issue warnings / They offer praise / This is trees’ work / and they do it with such uncomplaining grace / it never seems like work at all.” A swath of soft ink and a perfectly rendered rose reflect the turning of the year in “Summer Solstice”—“The richest garden / the greenest trees / will have a different form / wearing withered leaves like memories / of days when it was warm.” Esbensen’s venerable Cold Stars and Fireflies (1984) makes a nice accompaniment. (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-81094-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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Poetry and short informative paragraphs combine to celebrate both the elegance and the natural history of the American egret. Haiku, free verse, rhyming couplets and even a limerick are just some of the forms Yolen masterfully uses to engage readers on both aesthetic and scientific levels. Gorgeous photography completes this carefully designed literary science piece with scenes of the egret’s daily life. Stemple captures the egret’s movements as the light of each part of the day, from the yellow-orange glow of sunrise to midday pink to late afternoon sunset blue to evening purple, is reflected on its snow-white feathers. Both the poetry and the brief fact-filled vignettes explain how egrets walk, eat, fly and preen and how their plumes, so lace-like, were once coveted for decorating clothes and hats. A final poem muses on the future of this great wading bird in a country filled with polluted wetlands. A stunning combination of scientific and ecological knowledge offered through a graceful fusion of lyrical and visual media. (Informational picture book/poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59078-650-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S POETRY
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