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NIGHT GARDEN

POEMS FROM THE WORLD OF DREAMS

From Wong (The Rainbow Hand, p. 231, etc.), a collection of 15 soulful poems that commands attention and keeps until the end, with a canny, singular take on the familiar imagery of dreamtime. These are episodes of remembrance and genesis, falling and flying, of speaking an unknown language with facility, of the bite of an inexorable nightmare. Short and vivid, the poems urge readers to “pull/at the air around you/when you wake,/pull and gulp it down” to keep alive the presence of the departed who have just visited the dreamer. Wong can be skip-quick to suggest evanescence, or her words can flutter with fear; she can be exquisitely funny, as when a sibling eavesdrops on a sister who is talking and laughing in her sleep—about the eavesdropper. Paschkis is equal to the task of illustrating these poems, with two-page spreads presented as mirror-image two-toned diptychs, bursting with glyphs and portents across dream-crazed backgrounds, with the text scrolling across one page and the full-color image undulating from the other. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)

Pub Date: March 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-689-82617-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: McElderry

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999

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HERE COMES MOTHER GOOSE

This oversized companion to the much ballyhooed My Very First Mother Goose (1996) will take toddlers and ex-toddlers deeper into the playscapes of the language, to meet Old King Cole, Old Mother Hubbard, and Dusty Bill From Vinegar Hill; to caper about the mulberry bush, polka with My Aunt Jane, and dance by the light of the moon. Mixing occasional humans into her furred and feathered cast, Wells creates a series of visual scenarios featuring anywhere from one big figure, often dirty or mussed, to every single cat on the road to St. Ives (over a thousand). Opie cuts longer rhymes down to two or three verses, and essays a sly bit of social commentary by switching the answers to what little girls and boys are made of. Though Wells drops the ball with this last, legitimizing the boys’ presence in a kitchen by dressing them as chefs, in general the book is plainly the work of a match made in heaven, and merits as much popularity as its predecessor. (Folklore. 1-6)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-7636-0683-9

Page Count: 107

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

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ALL BY HERSELF

POEMS

Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-15-201477-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

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