GIVE YOURSELF TO THE RAIN

The subtitle is unfairly limiting; among these 24 previously unpublished poems are deceptively simple lyrics that will engage readers of any age: “Brace nothing against it / Safe in your bed / Listen / And give yourself to the rain. . . .” Though Brown gazes into a jack-o’-lantern’s eyes, and later the cozy confines of a sugar egg, for the most part she looks outward to the natural world, and so does Weidner (Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny, 2000, etc.) with outdoorsy scenes of children and familiar animals in grassy settings, depicted with subdued colors and soft, flowing lines. There are signs that some poems were still works in progress when the poet died in 1952; the title poem, for instance, ends with a weak line, and “Colors” starts out strongly—“Shout Red Sing Blue Laugh Green / Smile Yellow Whoa Black . . . ”—then trails off. Still, her sharp powers of observation, her ability to evoke the intensity of childhood experience, her ear for rhythm and wordplay, come through full-strength. Renowned children’s literature scholar Leonard S. Marcus adds a consciousness-raising introduction for parents/adults who haven’t already cottoned to Brown’s unique voice and talents. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)