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 Sandburg,
Carl. 1995. Poetry for Young People: Carl Sandburg. Edited
by Frances Schoonmaker Bolin. Illustrated by Steven Arcella. Sterling
Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0806908181.
“ The fog comes/on little cat feet./It sits looking/over harbor and city/on
silent haunches/and then moves on.” This is one of the most famous poems
by Carl Sandburg and is the first poem in this lovely illustrated collection
of some of his poetry. An inclusion in the series “Poetry for Young People”,
it contains an introductory four-page biography of the featured poet. Unfortunately,
no bibliography is included on the biographical information. Interesting and
easy to read details of his life, including his many hobbies and travels give
the poems more depth. Not that they really need the extra depth, the poems are
themselves easy to read and thoughtful. Some are playful like We Must Be Polite, “If
we meet a gorilla/what shall we do?/Two things we may do/if we so wish to do./Speak
to the gorilla/very, very respectfully, ‘How do you do sir?/Or speak to
him with less/distinction of manner,/’Hey, why don’t you go back/where
you came from?’” Others are more serious, such as Old Woman, “The
headlight finds the way/and life is gone from the wet and the welter-/Only an
old woman, bloated, disheveled and bleared./Far-wandering waif of other days,/huddles
for sleep in a doorway,/homeless.” A nice feature in this book is that
words whose meanings may not be clear for young readers are defined at the bottom
of each page.
 Cullinan,
Bernice E. Editor. 1996. A Jar of Tiny Stars: poems by NCTE award-winning
poets; children select their favorite poems. Illustrated by Andi
MacLeod. Wordsong; Boyds Mills Press. ISBN 1563970872.
This collection of poems selected from poets who have won the National
Council of Teachers of English Award for Poetry contains some of
children’s best loved poetry. Ten poets are included: David
McCord, Aileen Fisher, Karla Kuskin, Myra Cohn Livingston, Eve Merriam,
John Ciardi, Lilian Moore, Arnold Adoff, Valerie Worth, and Barbara
Esbensen. Each featured poet has five poems included, and several
of these poems are illustrated in black and white ink drawings. The
poem for which the collection was named is simple and fanciful; If
You Catch a Firefly by Moore: “If you catch a firefly/and keep
it in a jar/you may find that/you have lost/a tiny star./If you let
it go then,/back into the night,/you may see it/once again/star bright.” The
tone of the poems included is largely playful and full of vivid imagery,
with an occasional poem with a more serious tone. Martin Luther King
by Livingston is one of these: “Got me a special place/for
Martin Luther King./His picture on the wall/makes me sing./I look
at it for a long time/and think of some/real good ways/we will overcome.” With
brief biographical information included on each poet at the back
of the book and quotes from each poet at the beginning of this section,
this collection is well organized and entertaining.
 Prelutsky,
Jack. 1985. My Parents Think I’m Sleeping. Illustrated
by Yossi Abolafia. Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688040187.
Written by the same author that wrote the very popular “New
Kid on the Block”, this small collection of stories having
to do with being awake at night is a fun and interesting foray into
the night. These fourteen poems deal with things such as midnight
snacking like Chocolate Cake: “I am lying in the darkness/with
a smile upon my face,/as I’m thinking of my stomach,/which
has got an empty space,/and that corner of the kitchen/with the piece
of chocolate cake/I have got to get my hands on/for my empty stomach’s
sake.” Also dealing with things such as night fears as in A
Spooky Sort of Shadow: “There’s a spooky sort of shadow/dancing
weirdly on the wall,/it’s a creature that/I’ve never
seen before,/It’s creepy, and it’s eerie,/and so positively
tall,/that it stretches from/the ceiling to the floor.” Illustrations
in grayscale and blue and yellow are amusing and really add to the
texture and feeling of the poems.
 Florian,
Douglas. 1994. Beast Feast. Harcourt Brace & Company.
ISBN 0152951784.
This winner of the 1995 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and an ALA
Notable Children’s Book is a fun look at twenty-one different
animals. The paintings done for each animal are brightly colored,
full-page, and add a lot of texture and additional meaning to the
poems. The poems themselves are amusing and informative at the same
time. The Caterpillar for example: “The caterpillar’s
not a cat./It’s very small/and short and fat./And with those
beady little eyes/will never win a beauty prize./The caterpillar’s
brain is small-/it only knows to eat and crawl./But for this creepy
bug don’t cry,/it soon will be a butterfly.” The painting
for that poem shows a caterpillar eating a leaf and he’s left
the silhouette of a cat. Some are very brief, such as The Rhea: “The
rhea really isn’t strange-/It’s just an ostrich, rhearranged.” These
poems and pictures bounce and are truly an enjoyable experience.
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