PAPA IS A POET

Robert Frost’s eldest daughter’s fictional reminiscence of her father’s influential early years as a poet on their New Hampshire farm.

After their 1915 trans-Atlantic crossing following two years in England, 15-year-old Lesley Frost and her family arrive in New York City, where her father discovers his first book of poems has just been published. Waiting for the train home to New Hampshire, Lesley remembers her childhood on their poultry farm, where days “were ordinary but meaningful.” Speaking in the first person, she recalls the “cupboard was often bare, yet life was filled to the brim” and lovingly describes daily events her father later immortalized in his poems, including how he taught them to read, reread and write down their thoughts and feelings. Bober successfully creates this fictional account from Lesley’s childhood journal and her own A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost (1981), incorporating lines from Frost’s poems to show how his life on the New Hampshire farm shaped him as a poet. Sprightly acrylic ink, colored pencil and watercolor illustrations embody their idyllic country life.

A likable introduction to Frost as a father, farmer and poet who took the road “less traveled” from the engaging perspective of his oldest daughter.