Making poetry into child's play

REVIEWS BY DEBORAH HOPKINSON

April brings with it showers, spring and, naturally, poetry. National Poetry Month is a wonderful chance to share old favorites and explore new books with children. One friend I know has made a special effort to buy her daughter a new book of poems each April. What a wonderful way to instill a love of poetry in a child. Here are some new collections to share with children young and old.

A perfect place to start is with zoo's who, the latest title from award-winning poet and artist Douglas Florian, whose innovative books also include beast feast, lizards, frogs, and polliwogs and, my personal favorite, mammalabilia. As always, Florian's work manages to be clever, witty and appealing. It's easy enough for children to understand, but is so inventive adults won't tire of reading and re-reading. Take this offering, entitled, "The Eagle":

"I'm not a seagull. / I'm royal. / I'm regal. / All birds are not / Created eagle."

And it's hard to resist Florian's little poem about pigs, with an accompanying illustration of a swine at table: "Pigs are portly. Pigs are stout. Pigs are big on eating out."


For children and adults who love story poems, Kevin Crossley-Holland has compiled a beautifully illustrated poetry anthology entitled Once Upon a Poem, Favorite Poems that Tell Stories. These classic and contemporary selections include 15 exciting poems, lavishly illustrated by four different artists: Peter Bailey, Sian Bailey, Carol Lawson and Chris McEwan. Selections include old favorites like Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." There's also Tony Milton's rap version of Prince Theseus, entitled "Brave Boy Rap," which begins: "Prince Theseus was a brave young lad. Big bullies made him boiling mad. So when he heard about a beast whose horrid habit was to feast on gals 'n' guys, he frowned, 'OK!' and went to fight it that same day."


For readers who want to know more about poetry itself, poet and teacher Paul B. Janeczko has teamed with Caldecott Honor illustrator Chris Raschka to create A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms. What a fun, informative collection (and perfect to have around when it comes time to help with poetry-related homework assignments!). In his introduction, Janeczko addresses the question young writers often ask: why do some poems have to have rules, anyway? The book includes 29 different poetry forms, from haiku to quatrain, elegy to epitaph. There are also a few that I never knew: Villanelle and Clerihew! (Forgive me, but even a non-poet can't resist finding her poetic side in April.) As usual, Raschka's illustrations are bold, witty and clever. And while there's a lot of information here, the book design is deceptively simple and clean, with lots of white space setting off the poems. A separate section at the end of the book describes the forms in more detail. The poets included range from classic masters like William Blake to contemporary newcomers.


Finally, award-winning author Naomi Shihab Nye, whose 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award, has released a new collection of poems for girls entitled A Maze Me. Covering topics from first love to family, hopes and dreams, these 72 poems will challenge, comfort and confound, as all good poetry does.

The book is graced by an introduction that will encourage young readers to listen to their inner voice, ask questions and write. Says the author, "Whenever I meet a girl who's about eleven or twelve or thirteen or even older, I want to talk to her. Ask her things. See what she's looking at, off beyond the world we can see together. It's a huge time in life, that delicious and complicated movement from one era to another, and it can feel like a treasure or a precipice or both." This collection is indeed a treasure for readers to carry on that journey.


Deborah Hopkinson is a writer (though not a poet) whose newest picture book, Saving Strawberry Farm, a story set in the Great Depression, will be released in May.

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