Reflections, Observations, and Inspirations: Authors Speak

Reflections

Unwilling to wait for September, I recently ordered from the UK Reflections on the Magic of Writing, an upcoming collection of the late Diana Wynne Jones’s thoughts on life and her writing process. I began considering a post about books of essays on writing, and then The Enchanted Inkpot came out with a great post on books about writing fantasy for children and teens, so I’ll just refer you there for those (including my quick note on DWJ’s book). But really, the books I’m thinking of are a little different. They’re the books that have inspired me as a children’s writer, and they’re not how-to books. They’re one of two things: interviews with and stories about children’s book writers or essays and lecture transcripts from notable children’s book writers.

Apart from Reflections, most of these books are a little older. I figured I must have simply missed the boat and that there had been other such essay collections since I acquired my batch of inspirational writing about the making of children’s books. Well, as it turns out, not so much. There’s one I missed and have now ordered: On Writing for Children and Other People by Julius Lester. In addition, I will point out that Leonard S. Marcus has become the de facto chronicler of the world of children’s literature. His latest is Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators. Marcus’s Dear Ursula: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom and Golden Legacy, a history of the little Golden Books, are just fascinating. And as a fantasy writer, I love-love-love his book, The Wand in the Wood: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. Some day I’ll read the others. They all look good.

But why haven’t more children’s book writers come out with collections of lectures and essays in the past decade or so? One thought, of course, is that the market doesn’t support such books. Another is that most children’s book writers are too busy writing books for kids to spend time compiling books for older readers about process and craft. It may be that this task is left to elder statesmen and/or really big names in the field. All of which explains more or less why the incredibly lovely books I’m about to share are mostly out of print.

These are books for people who are absolutely nuts about children’s books or the works and thoughts of certain authors, or those who are children’s book writers themselves. They are also a way of getting to know some very fine, idiosyncratic creative minds. Reading these books won’t just give you ideas about writing for children, it will give you ideas about life and what it means to be human.


Reflections by Diana Wynne Jones

Oh, sure, you can read a really long analysis of Tolkien’s work called “The Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Rings” in this book. I’ll admit I faltered a bit there, though I read “Reading C.S. Lewis’s Narnia” and even her letter to the editor of The Times Literary Supplement titled “The Value of Learning Anglo-Saxon” with some relish. But most of the essays in this book are about writing, and many of them incorporate stories from Diana Wynne Jones’s childhood. You will find some repetition, of course, since writers tend to use the same (very good) anecdotes when presenting at different conferences, and more to the point, certain experiences really do shape us as individuals and as writers.

Reading Reflections is like getting to know Diana Wynne Jones (why does one hate to say simply Jones? But DWJ works!), and she is just as you might expect from reading every one of her books—brilliant, creative, a little acerbic, dry in a bright and witty way, and reluctant to allow the world to be simply ordinary.

You will also discover, if it’s something you didn’t already know, that DWJ had a pretty horrific, neglected childhood that somehow contributed, not only to her imagination, but to her skill with character. Have you noticed that all of DWJ’s characters feel so real because they are flawed, and that her adults in particular (and I do mean in her children’s books) tend to be flawed in amazingly honest, complex, and selfish ways?

Diana Wynne Jones also explains that her own approach to writing is almost never to outline, though the mythological bases of Fire and Hemlock were so intricately layered that she did relent and outlined part of the book sometime after completing a first draft. In fact, when you hear how many myths DWJ alluded to in writing Fire and Hemlock, you will be vastly impressed; I know I was, though I have read the book more than once.

I can't forget to mention the wry humor in Reflections, most notably when DWJ describes the worst of her school visits: hair-raising! And yes, though it isn’t funny, the semi-hanging incident in The Time of the Ghost comes from DWJ’s childhood, when she and her next sister came within inches of hanging their younger sister, who wanted to play Peter Pan in the rafters. (Their parents were nowhere to be found. They hardly ever were, including when it came to feeding and clothing their offspring.) And in Aunt Maria, the manipulation of feminine power was surely drawn from DWJ’s mother, who was jealous of her own daughters simply for being girls.

Another interesting aspect of some of these lectures and essays is that they trace the evolution of fantasy, showing how it became more common in the years following Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books and, though often filled with odd rules, eventually opened up—though one reason DWJ mostly stuck to writing children’s fantasy was that it seemed much more inclined to accept an “anything goes” approach, at least in comparison to what was being more rigidly expected of adult fantasy writers. (See “A Talk about Rules.”) Diana Wynne Jones was a rule breaker, or perhaps more accurately, a rule ignorer. She was busy traveling new ground even as she carried a bundle of myths like useful herbs in a fantasy healer’s pack.

DWJ speaks of writing for children as a great responsibility because of the power a good children’s fantasy book can have in a specific child’s life. She tells of the heroic ideal and her own odyssey. She offers hints on writing and reviews a book by Mervyn Peake. She creates an apt and beautiful analogy in “The Children in the Wood,” comparing the games of let’s-pretend that children create to writing fantasy. And she warns children who want to write: “Most teachers will tell you that you need to make a careful plan of your story before you start. This is because most teachers do not write stories.”

I’ve said before, as have others, that the best children’s books are subversive. Look at Maurice Sendak, for example—a born mischief-maker. And you just know that Mo Willems is partly his character, Pigeon. The best books surprise and challenge young readers, demanding that they see the world aslant, whether in beautiful ways or perfectly silly ones. DWJ's books are certainly among them.

I’ll just close with what came to be the most influential motif from DWJ’s childhood, a locked garden:

The garden that everyone saw was pleasant enough, though somewhat boringly laid out around a large square of grass. The Other Garden was quite different. It was like that garden in fairy tales where the king has counted all the apples. It was across a road, walled away from everyone, a blaze of manicured lawn leading to a tunnel of roses ending in an inlaid wood summer house, where espalier apple trees of types that are no longer grown surrounded plots of fruit, flowers, and vegetables. The bees had a plot of their own because they did not get on with the visionary gardener. Something about this garden caused him to build little shrine-like places in the wall niches and ornament them with posies and old Venetian glass.
     My father would not let anyone go there. He kept the large, old key to it in his pocket and it often took several days of pleading to get him to release it to me, grudgingly, for an hour or so. When I got there I simply wandered, in utter bliss. I talked to the bees, who never once stung me, although they pursued the visionary gardener once a week, in clouds, and occasionally turned on my father too; I ate apples; I watched things grow; and I never once connected it with the garden in the piano-playing picture, though that was more or less what it was.

Meet the unusual, delightful, and thoroughly subversive Diana Wynne Jones in her book, Reflections. 

Note: UK cover shown above.



Other Books from or about Children’s Book Writers


INTERVIEWS AND SUCH

The ABCs of Writing for Children, ed. Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff

This book is a kind of encyclopedia of quotes—mostly 1-3 paragraphs—from children’s writers on a variety of topics. It’s just decadent with ideas!

Quote from Marilyn Singer under "Pacing":

When you’re doing a novel, it’s a mistake to follow a quiet chapter with another quiet chapter. When people talk about books being too quiet—a book can be about emotion and not be quiet. If one chapter is more dramatic, then the next chapter can be more quiet.

Origins of Story: On Writing for Children by Barbara Harrison and Gregory Maguire (yes, that Gregory Maguire!)

These essays started out as Children’s Literature New England lectures given between 1988 and 1996. The writers include such luminaries as Sharon Creech, Maurice Sendak, Susan Cooper, Tom Feelings, Madeleine L’Engle, Virginia Hamilton, Margaret Mahy, Ursula Le Guin, and Katherine Paterson.

Quote from Sharon Creech’s essay, “Leaping Off the Porch”:

When I begin a book I feel like that “smoothbeautifulhorse” of e.e. cummings’s poem “the little horse is newlY.” I know nothing, but feel everything. All around me is perfectly a strangeness of light and smell, of a world that is welcoming me in, a world full of smoothbeautiful folds in which lies the breathing and silence of that someone—that character who is about to break her silence.

Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children, ed. William Zinsser

Long essays from six marvelous authors: Jean Fritz, Maurice Sendak, Jill Krementz, Jack Prelutsky, Rosemary Wells, and Katherine Paterson. This is the book which told me that Maurice Sendak’s wild things were based on his Jewish relatives, for example.

Quote from Rosemary Wells’s essay, “The Well-Tempered Picture Book”:

I had written a picture book that summer. I put every ounce of love, wit and lyricism in my jittery soul into that book. It was a real loser. I had wanted to write about an old woman who digs in her heels and hangs on to her house in the face of avaricious developers who wanted to tear it down. It wasn’t that this was a poor idea; it’s just that writing about anything is a mistake. The only books that work are those which fly through the air—the ones you let happen, not make happen.

ESSAYS, LECTURES, AND THOUGHTS

Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children by Susan Cooper

This book is a collection of essays from the author of the Dark Is Rising sequence.

Quote from her 1976 Newbery acceptance speech, “Seeing Around Corners”:

[Cooper was writing “a family adventure story” for a contest.] I invented three children called Simon, Jane and Barney, and a rather vague plot about villainy and hidden treasure. I wrote a first chapter in which they traveled down from London to Cornwall by train for a summer holiday, as my brother and I had done as children.
     And then a funny thing began to happen. The story, somehow, took over. My children were met at their destination by a very strange great-uncle named Merriman (why did I call him Merriman? I didn’t know) and before I quite knew what I was doing, the plot began to change completely. I forgot all about the E. Nesbit prize and the family adventure story—and the deadline. And I found I was writing a fantasy, full of images which had haunted me since childhood but which I’d never thought to put into fiction. In the final version I even cut that first deliberate chapter.

Dear Mem Fox, I Have Read All Your Books Even the Pathetic Ones and Other Incidents in the Life of a Children’s Book Author

The title says it all, doesn’t it? This is largely an autobiography of the vibrant teacher, reading advocate and author of Possum Magic, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Time for Bed, and many other picture books. Some of the later chapters do address craft, however.

Here’s a quote from the chapter called “Growing Up in Africa”:

There used to be a thorn tree near the bus stop, where people would gather for the meager shade. I heard unearthly sounds coming from there once—it was close to our house—so I leaped onto my bike and raced round to see what it was. A small crowd of Africans had gathered to watch a woman writhing at the base of the tree, to which she had been tied with strips of cloth. White froth spat from her mouth as she moaned and screamed.
     “What’s happening?” I asked.
     “Never mind, Merri,” said one of my friends. “She’s having a fit. She’s mad but she’ll be all right soon. You go home now.”
     I couldn’t go home. I was transfixed.

The Spying Heart: More Thoughts on Reading and Writing Books for Children by Katherine Paterson

Paterson grew up in China as the child of missionaries, and her work is influenced by themes from the Bible, e.g., in her book Jacob Have I Loved, which is about sibling rivalry and envy. See also her books of essays The Invisible Child and A Sense of Wonder. (The latter consists of two previous books, The Spying Heart and Gates of Excellence.) Note that Paterson has been criticized for her imperfect characters (e.g., the title character of The Great Gilly Hopkins) and difficult themes. Her books have won every major award you can think of, including two Newbery medals and a National Book Award.

This is a quote from a chapter (and lecture) titled “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?”

It was, therefore, with fear, alarm, and timorousness that I sidled up to the title of this lecture, “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?” Certainly not. I hardly dared disturb my springer spaniel. But, then, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was looking at quite a different universe from the one Prufrock was referring to. The universe that confronted me was no sleeping spaniel. It was a universe already greatly disturbed. What could I do, puny creature that I was, that would make a perceptible stir in such a whirlwind? Better, I thought, to gather my children about me, double-lock the doors, bolt the windows, and huddle together against the elements. The trouble with this metaphor is that I knew full well that my husband and probably my children would be out there somewhere battling the storm. I have never figured out just how Chicken Little managed to get herself married to the Man of La Mancha, but there you are…. Perhaps writing a book is a form of timidity.
     The irony, of course, is that try as I may, I cannot escape the universe. And in the end, the books I write must mirror it in all its terror as well as its grandeur.

Telling Time: Essays on Writing by Nancy Willard

Nancy Willard’s 1981 collection of poems, A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, won the Newbery and the Caldecott. Willard has written poetry and adult fiction in addition to children’s books.

This quote is from a chapter called “High Talk in the Starlit Wood”:

The fear at the heart of the ghost story is the fear of meeting our own fate; shall we not all, in the end, lie down in darkness and leave nothing behind but our bones? When I was a child, I used the word spooky to mean “terrifying.” I used it, for example, to describe my encounter in a dark church one night before a Christmas pageant in which I was to play an angel…. One by one, the children had been picked up by their parents, and I was left alone to wait for my father while Miss Blaine, the Sunday-school teacher, turned off the lights. I stood barefoot on the stone floor before the altar in my cardboard wings and thin white gown, waiting. Both of us had unsteady nerves. Neither of us knew that sickness would keep me out of the pageant and out of school for a month. Neither of us knew that Miss Blaine was on the verge of a nervous breakdown that would send her to an institution for a long recovery. A ghastly light from the street filtered in through the dark windows, which at this hour showed me none of the friendly saints whose company I enjoyed on Sunday mornings.
     Suddenly Miss Blaine took my hand. “Cold hands,” she observed. “I love little girls with cold hands.”
     In that moment she seemed to me a ghost come from the grave to take me with her, acknowledging that I, with my cold hands, was a willing victim. The cold floor, the darkness, the unsettling presence of a woman on the verge of madness—these natural phenomena I erroneously called spooky. I would not call them so today.

Take Joy: A Book for Writers and Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen has written poetry, picture books, middle grade, nonfiction, novels, anthologies, and young adult fiction. She is known for her fantasy and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 World Fantasy Awards. I especially like the premise of Take Joy, in which she argues against what the flap copy calls “the cult of the despondent writer.” Then there’s the enlightening way she discusses the tropes and traditions of fairy tales, folktales, and fantasy in Touch Magic, e.g., the idea of what she calls Tough Magic: “It is the old bargain principle. One cannot receive without first giving. Every miracle requires an initial disaster. Magic has consequences. That kind of wisdom can be found in the best of the old tales….”

And here’s a quote from Take Joy:

Even when it is not being taught in the classroom, a children’s book is teaching its young reader something. Ursula Nordstrom, the great editor at Harper, said something instructional to a new writer worried about writing what had already been written. “The children,” she said, “are new, though we are not.” 

Everything in a good book (perhaps even in a bad book) is a new truth, a new revelation to a child whose experiences are, as yet, so limited. Therefore writers for children need to be extra careful about preaching, about filling in those empty spaces for the child.

Now, you may be thinking I chose the above quotes very carefully, they’re all so good. But no, I flipped a few pages and picked something easily from each book because they are simply chock-full of quotable quotes, rich ideas and wonderful anecdotes. You may have to track these books down at the library or order them used on Amazon, but however you manage to find them, you’ll be glad you did.

Update: Jennifer of Jean Little Library has two more books to add—Eleanor Cameron's The Green and Burning Tree and E.L. Konigsburg's Talk Talk. Thanks, Jennifer!


Update #2: Catherine of Cath in the Hat has two, too! Celebrating Children's Books, ed. Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye (essays by Lloyd Alexander, Paula Fox, Arnold Lobel, and more) and The Zena Sutherland Lectures, 1983-1992, also edited by Betsy Hearne. Thank you, Catherine!


Update #3: Ruth Donnelly recommends Library of the Early Mind, a documentary about children's literature that includes interviews with the likes of Maurice Sendak and Jack Gantos.

A Review of Snow in Summer by Jane Yolen

We begin with a description of an old photograph showing a little girl named Snow in Summer on the day of her mother's funeral. Her father is oblivious to the existence of his seven-year-old daughter, devoured by his grief. Only Cousin Nancy is aware of Summer and her needs. She holds the little girl by the hand, offering comfort.

Jane Yolen's retelling of the Snow White story is eerie and immediate. The Appalachian setting adds both simplicity and strangeness as we watch the child's life changed, first by her mother's death and her father's withdrawal and later by the menacing incursion of the woman who marries her father.

Snow in Summer is almost a horror story when it comes to the wicked stepmother. Although the child named Summer suffers when her father ignores her, at least she has Cousin Nancy, who continues to care for her, stopping by the house each day to get her ready for school and cook her meals.

Most of the chapters in Yolen's story are told by Snow in Summer herself, but some are memories recounted by Cousin Nancy and even Stepmama. When Snow (as Stepmama names her) watches her father snared in a graveyard by the woman from up the mountain, there is clearly dark magic involved. In Stepmama's first memory chapter, we learn that the woman was trained by a great conjurer. We also find out that Stepmama can increase her personal magic by taking someone else's years. She plans to get Snow's father's property for herself and sell it to the railroad company, something he has always refused to do. Then she will use her magic to steal seven years from Snow. (She also toys with the idea of making Snow her apprentice.) But she claims she won't make Snow and her father suffer—too much. As she tells herself, "After all, I'm not a wicked woman."

The creepy little details are actually more striking than the things Stepmama tells us in her chapters. The way she has one green eye and one blue eye. The way she must have Snow's permission to enter the house, like a vampire. The terrible spell she casts on Snow's father. The glass bottles of potions.

"They could make you very sick, Snow," she cautioned, clinking a long red fingernail against the glass of the darkest bottle. Something almost seemed to stir in the depths, something with hands and feet and closed eyes. Something like a dead baby.

That's even before Stepmama takes Snow to the church with the snake handlers. And before Snow learns that there are worse things than snakes.

This well-crafted story gradually builds in dread. (Though the seven dwarfs—well, six plus a brother off at college—provide a bit of comic relief.) The intense, atmospheric storytelling breathes new life into a tale we all think we know. Yolen's best character is Stepmama, who makes the Disney villains look insipid by comparison. You may be a little disappointed when the story is over and things get better for Snow. No more dread. Sigh—The End.


Here's a Reading Rocket interview with Jane Yolen from March 2010 and her website.

Note for Worried Parents: Amazon lists this book for ages 10 and up. There are references to Snow in Summer getting her period, and you get the feeling she's going to be raped at one point, though it turns out she's (only!) going to be murdered instead. The emotional content and some child abuse make me want to say this is a fairly mature read, but then, it probably depends on the kid.

A Thousand Words

Thank you, Brian Selznick. Well, actually, I'm sure I can't ascribe the relatively recent ascendancy of graphic novels and other books with important visual elements entirely to him, or rather to his award-winning, about-to-be-a-movie The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but it sure as Dante's Inferno didn't hurt. Shaun Tan helped, too, I'm sure of it. Oh, and Marvel Comics. Don't forget them. Plus Marjane Satrapi and Shannon, Dean, and Nathan Hale. Not to mention Jarrett J. "I Can't Spell His Name without Looking but at Least I Can Spell Scieszka" Krosoczka. At any rate, we're seeing some really wonderful graphic novels and variations thereof.


The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Rebecca Guay

One that has been received with less fanfare than I would like is The Last Dragon. Apparently Jane Yolen had a great time creating Foiled (2010) because she's back with another GN, though it has a very different style. Foiled was low fantasy, but The Last Dragon is good old, glorious high fantasy, complete with village blacksmiths and herbalists and that titular dragon. The book has been published for the adult fantasy market, by the way, but it has definite YA appeal—and nothing in particular to worry parents of teens, if you don't count the baby who gets eaten by a dragon (offstage).

Despite the book's traditional trappings and its lush look, created by Rebecca Guay, it is not your great-grandmother's fairy tale. Oh, it reads like a fairy tale, but Yolen throws in some semi-scathing ideas about what makes a hero, or how a real hero might be made: from encouragement, foolhardiness, and kite strings.

Our story begins in a far-off land, on the island known as Meddlesome, where, unbeknownst to humans, the very last dragon's egg has stirred and begun to hatch. Meanwhile, a village herbalist is raising three daughters—practical, dour Rosemary; beautiful, empty-headed Sage; and talented, disobedient Tansy, who is a trial to her mother.

When Tansy and her father discover a plant called fireweed or flamewort, they dismiss the legends that say it only grows when dragons are around. Then Tansy's father disappears, and Tansy wonders if the legends might be true. At last the dragon is sighted; it has quickly developed a taste for humans and their beasts. The villagers gather rather hopelessly to plan their defense. One strategy is to send some of the village boys by boat to the mainland to fetch back a hero.

Naturally, the boys find all sorts of liars and thieves. At last they find a man who looks like a hero, but it's up to Tansy to shape this con artist into the real thing. And there is still the dragon to be defeated, one way or another.

Yolen's text is well paced and well written, as always. Guay's artwork flows beautifully around the words, burnished in dull golds and greens with touches of red throughout, so that the whole thing appears to have been painted on parchment.

Here's an excerpt from early in the story:

The isles ran red and dark with dragon blood till all of them were gone.

Or so the humans believed.

Two hundred years later:

At sunset the low tide scrapes the beach, pulling cold fingers through the sand and rock.

One great mother tree, older than the long-ago dragons, feels her roots loosening. Slowly, like a mountain, she falls with a crash into the water, giving up her adopted child, the egg she has cradled for so long.

This book is more for the fantasy lover than for the comic book crowd, though hero Lancot is deliberately drawn in ironic imitation of all those chesty superheroes. Overall, The Last Dragon is rendered as if it were a retelling of a lost fairy tale. The first few pages evoke medieval manuscripts, in fact. It's a beautiful book, and it's going on the shelf with my growing collection of excellent graphic novels.

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

This YA graphic novel is garnering starred reviews right and left, and no wonder. Anya's Ghost is a perfect rendering of what it means to be an outsider, or at least, to feel like one, which is more to the point. The book also has fascinating things to say about crushes and being true to oneself.

Anya is a Russian immigrant who's trying very hard not to come across like one. Having arrived in the U.S. in kindergarten, she has dropped her accent and learned to blend in. She tries very hard to avoid a more recent Russian immigrant, Dima, hoping she won't be lumped in with him.

After an embarrassing incident at school, Anya flees into a little wooded area and falls into a deep hole. At the bottom, she isn't just frightened by her predicament; she discovers a skeleton and meets the ghost of another girl who fell down the hole and was never found.

It will give you an idea of Brosgol's humor to learn that when Anya's shouting brings a teenage boy to the top of her prison and she yells, "HEY, GET HELP! GET SOMEBODY! I'M HURT!" he calls down, "Are you a hot chick? You kind of sound like a hot chick." Anya makes a priceless face and then replies, "Incredibly hot. You cannot even begin to imagine."

Thanks to a little bone that has somehow gotten in her backpack, Anya's ghost follows her home. At first the ghost seems sweet, telling Anya her sad tale of a soldier boyfriend lost in the war, a vicious attack on her family, and that fateful fall down the hole. Emily begins to help Anya with her tests in school and with getting the attention of Anya's crush, a basketball player. She even pushes Anya to get invited to a party where Sean will be and helps her pick out an outfit. A really slutty outfit.

Huh? Is this simply a matter of bad taste? Well, no. Let's just say that Emily is not quite the person she said she was, and it may not be easy to get rid of her. Watch out, Anya—you've been haunted!

I don't know which I like more, the ghost plot or the way the rest of Anya's life is portrayed, from her mother studying for the citizen test to her quarrel with best friend Siobhan and her fears about being fat. No, wait, I love Brosgol's depiction of the horrors of high school gym class!

Anya's Ghost is a fresh and perfectly aimed story about teenage fears. I'm sure someone could have a field day with the symbolism of the ghost as the dark side of any girl, let alone Anya, but you don't need to go all "literary analysis" to enjoy this terrific graphic novel. Just relish the storytelling. And make sure there aren't any finger bones in your backpack.

Note for Worried Parents: There is quite a bit of smoking in this book, also a teen party and a boy who obviously uses girls sexually. Everything is handled tastefully, however, with a positive message about not caving to peer pressure or trying to please a boy.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg and a bunch of illustrious writers

As Lemony Snicket explains in his introduction, for many years, teachers have used The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg as a set of great story starters. The book is a collection of marvelous illustrations, each with a cryptic sentence or two that just begs for more.

Here, in this new volume, is the more. That is, some bright soul got the idea of having a group of well-respected authors write short stories to go with the mysterious illustrations. The writers are, in order of appearance in the book, Lemony Snicket (introduction), Tabitha King (Stephen's wife), Jon Scieszka (told you I could spell it), Sherman Alexie, Gregory Maguire, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Linda Sue Park, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, Kate DiCamillo, M.T. Anderson, Louis Sachar, Chris Van Allsburg himself, and Stephen King.

The phrase "a veritable who's who" comes to mind.

Now, it's been my experience that short story collections tend to contain 1-2 great stories, 4-5 good stories, and several that don't cut it. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick beats this trend to some extent. There aren't any truly rotten stories in the book. However, there are certainly some standouts. The other thing I noticed is that at least half the stories seemed better suited to an adult audience than to kids. Here is a brief commentary on each one:

"Archie Smith, Boy Wonder" by Tabitha King—It may take a few pages for the reader to realize that the narrator is a special needs child, perhaps a boy with Down's Syndrome. This is a lyrical story about baseball, the moon, and imagination, but its beauty may not be appreciated by children as much as it will be by adults.

"Under the Rug" by Jon Scieszka—The mastermind behind the Guys Read project gives us a humorous horror story with unapologetically gruesome boy appeal. It's about a boy, his grandma, and a lump beneath the rug. Also about the way kids clean house, which is to say, not very diligently. Fun suspense with a twist. (See guy wielding chair, below left.)

"A Strange Day in July" by Sherman Alexie—The brother and sister twins in this story aren't at all nice. In fact, as the author points out often, they are strange. But these budding sociopaths, the terrors of the community, may just get their own when they invent another sister. I wouldn't share this tale with anyone under the age of 10, but it is creepy-cool.

"Missing in Venice" by Gregory Maguire—Magical realism blossoms into fantasy in this satisfying story of a boy adrift in Venice, at the mercy of his money-hungry stepmother and her scorpion of a lawyer now that Linus's father has died. When Linus meets the Queen of Gingerbread and steals something from her, everything changes.

"Another Place, Another Time" by Cory Doctorow—An old-fashioned story about a boy whose father goes to sea. It is also about the physics of space and especially time. The science dialogue feels a little dry, but the discovery of the old handcar, which Gilbert and his friends christen Kalamazoo, adds wonder and adventure to the narrative.

"Uninvited Guests" by Jules Feiffer—I wasn't in love with this story of a children's book illustrator whose creations come to life after his wife leaves him and his house catches on fire. What starts out as Alice in Wonderland ends up being about death, with a very adult sensibility.

"The Harp" by Linda Sue Park—I found the message in this one distracting, but maybe kids won't notice. A girl and her sister are trapped in the woods by a wizard who wants to teach them to stop bickering. One of them is turned into a frog, and she has to learn to play the harp. Of course, she can only do this with her sister's help. The other plot strand tells of a very angry boy who has lost his mother.

"Mr. Linden's Library" by Walter Dean Myers—The author does a nice, slow build here. Carol Jenkins visits an old man who lets her borrow his books, but what she really wants to get her hands on is the strange book he is reading. This story may be too quiet for some kids, but I liked it. I was especially pleased by the way Myers wrapped up the story, yet kept the spell of suspense going, just as Van Allsburg's mysterious illustrations do. (See sleeping girl with book, below right.)

"The Seven Chairs" by Lois Lowry—Another one that may read a little older, but a well-told tale for all that. We learn of a group of baby girls who float in their cribs in the year 1928. Only one of them keeps it up, honing her craft over the years. But the most interesting thing about Mary Katherine ("MK") Maguire is that she discovers seven chairs which have the ability to join her in floating. It's odd and fun to follow her as she finds each one. Years later, MK visits a Gothic cathedral. Is there a reason she studied French?

"The Third-Floor Bedroom" by Kate DiCamillo—Again, I feel like this story is for adults or at least for more sophisticated readers. However, it really got me; it's one of my favorites in the collection. We read a series of letters from a girl called Pearlie to her soldier brother. Pearlie is a passionate, angry child who has lost both her parents and feels abandoned by her brother. She stares out the attic window and looks at the birds on the wallpaper, wishing they could fly away. Wishing she could fly away. And then she gets sick. I suppose I wouldn't go so far as to call Pearlie an unreliable narrator, but her shifting perspective sweeps us along in a wonderfully well-crafted way.

"Just Desert" by M.T. Anderson—No, that's not a typo. It's a play on words from Van Allsburg. Anderson's story is thoroughly engrossing and takes a twist I really didn't see coming. But then, we are talking about one of the most creative minds in children's fiction! The ending is pleasingly chilling.

"Captain Tory" by Louis Sachar—A subtly well made and touching story. Captain Tory visits the doughnut shop down by the wharf every morning for a cinnamon doughnut and a cup of coffee. Captain Tory is a ghost. Then one morning he visits the hardware store instead, which pleases Paul. One of the best in the collection, in my opinion.

"Oscar and Alphonse" by Chris Van Allsburg—This one has been anthologized previously. Oscar and Alphonse are caterpillars who spell out words, but only for Alice. Meanwhile, her older brothers and her father are trying to solve a great physics problem, the Farkas Conjecture. Parts of this story may be over young readers' heads, but they'll like the way Alice and her caterpillars are wiser than the grown-ups. The ending hangs rather, but that's what you would expect from the guy who made all those mysterious Harris Burdick illustrations in the first place. (See photo of Allsburg, below left.)

"The House on Maple Street" by Stephen King—I was never a big horror fan, so I didn't get into King's books. Then I read On Writing and was very impressed. So I wasn't surprised by how real this story felt, how odd and enthralling it was. Four children discover something strange about their house in between worrying about their mother's migraines and their stepfather's cold heart. Then oldest boy Trent comes up with a plan to make everything better.

I should mention that The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is beautifully designed, heavy and luxurious. Each story is introduced by a sort of monogrammed HB followed by a smooth book plate version of the illustration. The designer capitalizes on those great brown tones from the original. It's one of the prettier books you'll see this year.

Teacher/Writer Stuff

I have a new day job writing teacher's guides for elementary history books, so I've got curriculum on the brain... Then again, maybe this is more of a writer thing. But it occurs to me that besides using the Harris Burdick pieces as writing prompts with the words, you could get rid of the bits of text and come up with your own. The following are mine, but see if you can write some, too. Or try this with your class!

Warning: Also, don't let your students read the stories in Chronicles if you want to use the Mysteries as writing prompts. Share the new pro stories only after letting kids come up with their own, or they may get derailed.

"Archie Smith, Boy Wonder"—When they were big enough, his dreams escaped.

"Under the Rug"—I tried aiming for the little table, but I couldn't see anything, and the man kept yelling horribly.

"A Strange Day in July"—"They said no fireworks," I reminded her. "That's alright," Lindsey told me, "Watch."

"Missing in Venice"—Grandma couldn't get a building permit.

"Another Place, Another Time"—Henry blew on the sails, and the handcar began to move.

"Uninvited Guests"—Someone had taken the sign down, but I remembered what it said.

"The Harp"—Last time it was a clarinet made from a giant's toe-bone.

"Mr. Linden's Library"—So that's where the briars came from. She kept her eyes shut.

"The Seven Chairs"—Sister Ascenza Ignatius was allowed to float on Tuesdays. This was a Friday.

"The Third-Floor Bedroom"—The first snowflake wandered down from the sky, not to be mistaken for the last bird, which still hadn't arrived.

"Just Desert"—It isn't easy carving a carriage.

"Captain Tory"—"If I call the ship," he asked, "will you tell them Gasche lost the key?"

"Oscar and Alphonse"—When I opened my hand, the magic beans had turned into caterpillars.

"The House on Maple Street"—It was the best Christmas, and the last.

You see? The mysteries continue to call to us. Used the right way, a piece of art can paint words in the air. We may be a little worried about the state of the picture book these days, but never fear: there are people in the world of books who are doing new and wonderful things with pictures.

A Review of Foiled by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Mike Cavallaro

Jane Yolen is known for her amazing career in children's literature, which spans genres as well as decades and will hit the 300-book mark this fall. She's published poetry, short stories, picture books, easy readers, middle grade fiction, and YA novels, including fantasy, science fiction, humor, historical fiction, and a marvelous folklore anthology you should look for at your local library or bookstore (Favorite Folktales from Around the World).

So why not a graphic novel?

Never one to rest on her laurels, Yolen has expanded her already-expansive repertoire with the recent publication of Foiled, a graphic novel illustrated by Mike Cavallaro. Foiled is the story of Aliera Carstairs, a girl who doesn't fit into any particular group, not even the kids in her fencing studio. She's so much better than the others, it sets her apart. Besides, she seems to thrive on being apart—even when she questions it.

Graphic novels lend themselves to third person, but Yolen's book is written in the first person, which I liked. Aliera introduces herself as our narrator, explaining on page two:

The story I have to tell you is not about Avery, it's about me, and fencing, and what I learned while masked.
It's about defense and defenders.
It's about power, and I don't mean electricity.
It's about family.
Most grown-ups will tell you things are revealed when you take off a mask.
But they're wrong, as they often are.
Everything was revealed when I put my fencing mask on in Grand Central Station.
Everything.

In these chapters, satisfyingly titled with fencing moves, Aliera shows us her isolation, then proceeds to develop a crush on a strange new boy, her lab partner. Amazed by her own giddiness, she tries to retain her dignity around the flirtatious and slightly odd Avery, but doesn't always succeed.

Aliera is also given a new foil, one her mother bought at a junk sale. She believes the huge jewel on the handle is paste and tries to remove it, but it won't come off. Then comes the Saturday when Aliera cancels her usual visit with her cousin Caroline, who is chronically ill, to meet Avery at Grand Central Station for a date.

There she puts on her fencing mask—and sees another world, one filled with fairy tale creatures who are beautiful, ugly, odd, and menacing. Suddenly Aliera is in the middle of a battle, with only her fencing skills and her New York City instincts to save her. And Avery isn't exactly cooperating.

Yolen uses familiar tropes like the kid with special powers and a mission to save the world, magic swords, and hidden kingdoms, but she takes them somewhere new in this urban fantasy, showing readers how powerfully voice can drive a graphic novel. Sometimes the visual elements in a graphic novel (like the art in too many picture books) can mask a weak text. That is not the case here. If anything, Yolen's language elevates the art—although that's well done, too. One nice touch is that Aliera is colorblind and Cavallaro's illustrations represent her black-and-white view until Aliera gets to see the unseen world within her world, at which point color bursts onto the pages and into her eyes for the first time. (This strategy was also used to good effect in the new graphic novel of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.)

Mike Cavallaro's art is witty and clear, creating satisfying movement across each spread. He is especially good at capturing the tiniest nuances of Aliera's moods with facial expressions and other body language, playfully adding sharp teeth when she is angry.

More than another feisty girl, Aliera is by turns distant and familiar as she struggles with her place in the world, trying to become something, she's not sure what. These themes are woven into the very real feeling of the events depicted in Foiled. I like how Yolen uses things like Aliera's colorblindness and the strategies of fencing to represent this character's struggles with identity and with social interactions. When a distracted Aliera performs poorly in the fencing studio for once, her irate mentor says:

"Aliera Carstairs, what do you think you're doing? OR NOT DOING."
"I was protecting my heart?"
"Defense, yes. But sometimes you have to risk all to win. I thought you understood that."

One more word, and this interchange would lose its power. Instead Aliera shrugs, and her instructor continues: "Perhaps you need to sit down. Or go home. Or rethink your commitment."

During my first reading, I was a little disappointed not to see more action with the otherworldly creatures in the train station. Also, the most obvious of Aliera's problems in that section of the book is solved by outside intervention. However, a second look made me realize that the true battle in the train station is Aliera's "date" and how she deals with it. Yolen uses fantasy elements to heighten the awkwardness of young love throughout Foiled, ruthlessly dissecting it like the frog Aliera and Avery must dissect early on.

Of course, Aliera herself warns us that this story "is not about Avery, it's about me, and fencing." So I should say, rather, that Foiled is about how Aliera learns a little bit more about handling herself in a seemingly black-and-white world. This book is Volume One of a coming-of-age story that uses a foil and a boy and magical creatures in a train station as, well, foils.

From what I understand, Aliera's story will be told in a mere two volumes. Frankly, I'm not sure how that's possible—there's so much potential for a longer series here. But if anyone can do it, it's master craftswoman Jane Yolen.

Note for Worried Parents: Foiled is listed on Amazon as being for ages 9-12, but it has a kind of teen sensibility, with brief references to things like drug and alcohol use, plus kissing. Aliera and her friends are in high school. I think the ideal audience for this book would be middle schoolers, along with 9th and 10th graders. Aha—the publisher's website says it's for grade 6 and up (or age 11 and up).

Grieving in Picture Books

Earlier this week a few friends and I, teachers all, were making plans to get together for lunch during winter break. One friend reminded us that she's not available on one particular date because it's her son's "death day," the date he and his wife and little boy were killed in a car accident several years ago. She will be spending it with her other children.

For my part, I can assure you that our Christmases haven't been the same since my father died nearly five years ago. The old traditions don't seem to work anymore, and new traditions are still half-formed. Sometimes I'm not sure they'll ever grow into anything at all.

Another friend recently confided in me that she doesn't know what to do about her mother, who can't handle the holidays since her younger daughter died just last year.

Because the holidays are a time for family, they may remind us of family we have lost. And they may not feel particularly frolicsome for other reasons. There are many kinds of loss, including plain old loneliness. Today I am missing my home teaching students. Four of the five will be going back to school in January and I will be assigned new ones—our last day was yesterday.

Books for children about grief or loss—whether of a pet, a grandparent, or even oneself—tend to be didactic or overdone for obvious reasons. Here I will try to highlight the handful of books about death that avoid over-sentimentalizing loss, treating it with respect, compassion, and a subtle human pain.

The first book is new, and it's one I've been wanting to share with you for a couple of months. Australian author Mem Fox is best known for her book, Possum Magic, and for her efforts to promote children's literacy, especially reading with your children. Possum Magic and other books by this author are so cheery that it's almost a shock to come across this tender, solemn tale. The Goblin and the Empty Chair is a demanding book because it unequivocally expects you to read between the lines. Here we have a family consisting of a mother, a father, and a daughter. They are seen through the eyes of a lonely goblin who is basically spying on them, worrying about how sad they are. The goblin has his own problem—he hides his face from everyone because of his horrible looks.

It will make things more clear when I tell you that the book is illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. This story reads like a fairy tale, with some evocation of the tradition of the helpful brownie or household elf. In the Dillons' illustrations, the goblin and the people have a quiet elegance; they certainly aren't cute. The empty chair of the title has two meanings—it represents both the family's loss (see the family portrait on the wall) and the place that may be waiting at the table for a new friend. The Goblin and the Empty Chair isn't the kind of book that tops the bestseller list, but it's one of those hidden gems, especially for a family that has suffered the loss of a child. It's the subtlest, strangest book I've ever seen about death and grief, and I highly recommend it.

The Tenth Good Thing about Barney is Judith Viorst's classic book about the death of a pet, illustrated by Erik Blegvad. In it, the small boy narrator tells about the death of his cat, the funeral in the backyard, his argument about heaven with a neighbor girl, and his list of good things—ending with a new idea about Barney now that he's "in the ground." Viorst doesn't discount the idea of heaven, but takes a pragmatic approach to the mystery. Her depiction of this boy's experience is frank and simply told, touching without being contrived. One reason the book is so effective is that the narrator's parents handle the situation calmly and supportively. I'll let you read about the ten good things for yourself, but here's an excerpt from the funeral:

In the morning my mother wrapped Barney in a yellow scarf. My father buried Barney in the ground by a tree in the yard. Annie, my friend from next door, came over with flowers. And I told good things about Barney... At the end of the funeral we sang a song for Barney. We couldn't remember any cat songs, so we sang one about a pussywillow. Even my father knew the words.

There's a reason the book has been in print for decades!

Badger's Parting Gifts is perhaps the most didactic book I'm spotlighting today, but I think it works. Again, the tone is matter-of-fact, which really helps. Those who don't believe in an afterlife might dislike the fact that Badger is shown going down a kind of tunnel when he dies, and there's a hint of "he's looking down on us from heaven," although this is never stated overtly. But mostly, what's nice about the book is the way it shows how natural death is for the elderly, how sad those left behind will feel, and how sharing memories can bring some comfort. In this case, author-illustrator Susan Varley particularly focuses on what Badger has taught each of the other animals, the "parting gifts" of the title. Nice to know you can communicate the concept of "legacy" to kids without once using the word! The watercolors in this book may remind you of Ernest Shepherd's illustrations for The Wind in the Willows, as they did me. They are just right for telling the story.

The next two books are out of print, so perhaps you can find them at your local library or order them used. Both are about the loss of a grandfather. Jane Yolen's book, Grandad Bill's Song, is illustrated by Melissa Bay Mathis. In it, a young boy asks different family members and a family friend, "What did you do on the day Grandad died?" Every person answers a different way, and the following page gives us that individual's memories of Grandad Bill in "photos," often when he was much younger. So the entire book is a dialogue, but Yolen has written each section as a poem, with the utmost mastery. Here's an example:

Mama, what did you do on the day Grandad died?
I looked in the mirror, and then, son, I lied.
I said to myself that my daddy's not dead.
But the mirror looked back at me, shaking its head.

Isn't that just beautiful? By the end of the book, we realize that the narrator is a little worried about his own reaction to losing his grandad. But his father has an answer for him, and it's a good one. Grandad Bill's Song is a powerful book about how different people react differently to a death, and how that's just fine.

The Magpie Song by Laurence Anholt, illustrated by Dan Williams, has more of a narrative feel, although it, too, is structured, in this case by a series of letters between a little girl and her grandfather. Carla, who lives in the city in an apartment, exchanges letters with her grandad, who lives in the country. Carla's parents are struggling financially, and her grandfather is having some health problems. The motif of the old rhyme about magpies is used to tie the grandfather's letters together, and he even carves a magpie for Carla. The endpapers give us the complete rhyme, with themes echoed by different parts of the story ("One for sorrow/Two for joy/Three for a girl...").

In an age when the tie between grandparents and grandchildren is sometimes undervalued, this book shows how important that relationship can be. It's a fairly sophisticated story and the ending jumps chronologically, but I think The Magpie Song is worth a little extra thought. Events are handled subtly; for example, Carla starts writing little letters that just say, "Why haven't you written?"—and readers will realize that her grandfather is seriously ill. Considering that the grandfather's death is evoked rather than described, The Magpie Song is a surprisingly effective book about loss. The author also manages to touch on the connection between the father and the grandfather and even what it means to be true to yourself, all without being heavy-handed or derailing his narrative.

Now, I teach children who are recovering from surgery or seriously ill, and sometimes they die. The last book I'll mention is about the death of a child. It's a small book called The Purple Balloon, and it's by Chris Raschka. The author-illustrator chooses to represent people as balloons. Very few people could make this work, but the incredibly talented Raschka pulls it off. The book begins, "No one likes to talk about dying. It's hard work." First we see an elderly balloon who is going to die, and then we read about a young balloon who is very ill: "There is only one thing harder to talk about than someone old dying—someone young dying." Raschka emphasizes the many people who gather around to offer companionship and support. That's really the focus of the book: "Good help makes dying less hard." I looked through Amazon for alternatives to The Purple Balloon and didn't see anything else with this matter-of-fact quality. One thing I've found as a home teacher is that kids who are dying don't like being fussed over by people dripping with sympathy. They do like plain old, garden-variety human attention, however. (It's surprising how normal you feel when your teacher gives you math homework.)

We all know loss is part of the human condition. Most of the time, the children in our lives won't have to deal with it, at least in the form of death. But when they do, I hope you'll think of these books. Because, unlike platitudes, a good story can offer true comfort.


Suggestions from the Comments:

--Always My Brother by Jean Reagan, illustrated by Phyllis Pollema-Cahill
--Bird by Zetta Elliott, illustrated by Shadra Strickland (for older readers, about losing a brother to drug addiction and then death; African American family)
--Michael Rosen's Sad Book, illustrated by Quentin Blake (some find this too dark; see debate in Amazon customer reviews)
--Tess's Tree by Jess M. Brallier, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (about the loss of a favorite tree; can also be used as a metaphor for other losses and the grief process)
--Wishes for One More Day by Melanie Joy Pastor, illustrated by Jacqui Grantford (about a Jewish family, two children who lose their grandfather)

A Review of The Scarecrow's Dance by Jane Yolen and Bagram Ibatoulline

They say that the "quiet book" is dead, but The Scarecrow's Dance is proof that it isn't; although, as master storyteller Yolen shows us, even a quiet story can include suspense. If we were high school lit students, we would probably tag the conflict here as "man vs. himself," only I suppose it would have to be modified as "straw man vs. himself."

Written in beautifully controlled poetry, The Scarecrow's Dance is about a straw man who gets free of his pole and begins to dance away. Then he overhears a farm child's prayer and rethinks his purpose in life.

I was actually a little surprised to come across a prayer in a picture book, but you'll find that the plot calls for it, and no, this isn't just a story for families who pray. It does make you think about faith in a new way, however. For one thing, who besides God might be listening to a prayer, and how might those words of hope affect them?

If Yolen is best known for Owl Moon and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? then Bagram Ibatoulline is probably best known for illustrating The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. A fine artist from Russia, Ibatoulline renders Yolen's scarecrow with nighttime mystery and the slightest touch of humor. His cornfield and crows are especially beautiful, stark shapes against a dim sky. The farm child almost looks like he came from a Norman Rockwell painting, but then, that matches the tone of the story, with its emphasis on down-home values such as plain old hard work.

Verse in a picture book can be badly mishandled, but we're talking Jane Yolen here. I'll give you a sample:

He shrugged his shoulders,
And a grin
Just like a corn row,
And as thin,
Broke out along
His painted face.
He gave a leap—
And left his place.

In a day when "do your own thing" has permeated our culture, it's actually a risk to write a book like this one, with a message about doing your duty. What impact does fulfilling your responsibilities have on the lives of others? Read about Jane Yolen's dancing scarecrow for a new take on a very old question.

See also Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant and Lauren Stringer, The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown and David Diaz, and, on a related note, Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

A Handful of Poems: Five Anthologies for Small Children

I was reading The Usborne Book of Poems for Young Children, edited by Philip Hawthorn (Usborne, 2004), when I came up with the Wynken, Blynken, and Nod rule, which states that any poetry collection for little kids that includes Eugene Fields’s sappy poem, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” should be red-flagged as being behind the times. I solemnly swear that I came up with the rule before the British Corollary occurred to me. It states that any book of poems for small children which includes “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” is likely to be British.

Sure enough, the only other book of the five I’m reviewing that includes WBN is My First Oxford Book of Poems, edited by John Foster (Oxford UP, 2000). Now, random as my rule may seem, it hints at other facets of children’s poetry collections published by the Brits. In general, I found the poems to be more sophisticated. Whether this means that UK editors consider young children to be capable of listening to longer, more complex poems than American editors do or simply indicates that they had a wider age range in mind, I do not know. But I do know that the two British collections include more classic, literary poems than the other three collections. The books somehow seems more stately to me than the American ones, if a little old-fashioned. They also have the advantage of drawing on poets not always added to American collections, e.g., John Agard and Roger McGough. This may be more of a sideways shift than a measure of fuller breadth, but it is still refreshing.

Heavy hitters like William Blake, Christina Rossetti, Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Victor Hugo, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Shakespeare are represented in Philip Hawthorn's Usborne anthology, but so are Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, Roald Dahl, and the famous Anon. (Did you know that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that verse about the little girl with the little curl in the middle of her forehead? I didn’t!) I particularly enjoyed the poems I hadn’t read elsewhere, such as the first in the collection, “Magic Cat,” by Peter Dixon. The poem tells of a family cat who accidentally becomes magic and then turns the human family members into various things with her wand of a tail. Roger McGough has three poems in the collection. My favorite is “The Sound Collector,” in which an ominous figure carries away all of the household sounds in a bag. “He didn’t leave his name/Left us only silence....”

Cathy Shimmen’s illustrations suit Hawthorn’s book, light and bright without being saccharine. They don’t overpower the poems, but they do round out the pages nicely. The Usborne Book of Poems for Young Children skews a little old for toddlers, but it’s a solid collection for four- to eight-year-olds.

One thing I like about John Foster’s collection, My First Oxford Book of Poems, is that he organizes the poems into categories: Out and About, Creatures, From Dusk till Dawn, Beside the Sea, Fantastical and Nonsensical, and Weather and Seasons. A children’s poetry collection can feel like such a jumble without an organizational strategy, and besides, I like being able to read one section each night before bed.

I can almost forgive Foster for his inclusion of the overly adorable WBN because he also includes Nancy Willard’s marvelous, mysterious bedtime poem, “Magic Story for Falling Asleep,” which begins: “When the last giant came out of his cave/and his bones turned into the mountain/and his clothes turned into the flowers/nothing was left but his tooth....” Foster ranges a little farther afield with his choices than Hawthorn does, pulling in some poets who are less well known and are more contemporary, such as William Jay Smith, Kaye Starbird, Judith Nicholls, and Russell Hoban. Listen to this passage from Richard Edwards’s strange and beautiful poem, “Badgers”: “Badgers don’t jump when a vixon screams,/Badgers drink quietly from moonshiny streams,/Badgers dig holes in our dreams.”

I am a big fan of Eleanor Farjeon, so I was pleased to see three of her poems in this book. And take a look at the first stanza of Sue Cowling’s poem, “Pond”: “The pond is green as glass, the water slow,/It barely stirs the frills and fronds of weeds./Ponds have all day to dream, nowhere to go.”

The interior illustrations for My First Oxford Book of Poems are by eight different artists, so maybe it isn’t surprising that I thought they were a mixed bag. I’ve seen incredible poetry collections illustrated by various artists; however, some of the illustrations in this book are far more evocative than others. Like Hawthorn’s book, My First Oxford Book of Poems runs older, in spite of the title. I would recommend it for five- to eight-year-olds.

In comparing the two anthologies, I discovered that Hawthorn’s collection was more rollicking than Foster’s, jumping around from one subject to another and offering readers more funny poems. Foster’s collection had a more consistent tone—even with occasional touches of humor, it felt strongly imagistic, even haunting, to me.

Of course, no talk of poetry collections would be complete without the inimitable Lee Bennett Hopkins, so let’s look at his anthology, Climb into My Lap: First Poems to Read Together (Simon and Schuster, 1998). Like Foster’s book, it is divided into categories: Me! Secret Places, It’s So Funny! Some People, Worlds of Make-Believe, It’s Story Time! Little Hands and Fingers—Little Toes and Feet, and Good Night. You should know that Hopkins creates his collections, not only by looking at poems which are already out there, but by recruiting promising poets to write to the themes he’s selected.

Like Foster, Hopkins gets extra points for including Nancy Willard’s poem, “Magic Story for Falling Asleep.” But oh—I’m in shock! I just found WBN lurking two-thirds of the way through the book! (Not sure I’ll recover from the blow.) So much for the British Corollary. Perhaps we’re looking at the age of these editors? (I’ve gone from sounding anti-Brit to ageist in one fell swoop!)

Climb into My Lap is for a younger audience than the first two—I would recommend it for three- to seven-year-olds. The editor is particularly skilled at slipping back and forth between the pensive and the playful. The poems in this collection also strike me as being more straightforward, but in some cases this means they are less imagistic than the ones collected by Hawthorn and Foster. Still, the best poems in Climb into My Lap are lovely. Besides which, any collection that includes Deborah Chandra has got to be good! And Hopkins has chosen one of my favorite poems ever, Charlotte Zolotow’s “People,” which begins, “Some people talk and talk/and never say a thing./Some people look at you/and birds begin to sing.”

Kathryn Brown’s art for Hopkins’s anthology is just right, clear yet soft, as well as subtly multicultural. I don’t know which I like better, her cast of children or her day-and-night illustrations of the famous Quangle Wangle’s hat. (You should know that Climb into My Lap is out of print, so check it out at the library or track down a used copy.)

Jack Prelutsky’s contribution to this corner of the poetry world is Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young (Knopf, 1986). Prelutsky is known for writing humorous poems with a lot of strong-edged sounds and wordplay, which pretty much describes the tone of his anthology. One example would be Lenore M. Link's "Holding Hands," which starts out, "Elephants walking/Along the trails/Are holding hands/By holding tails...." Marc Brown’s illustrations are just as playful as the poems. This collection has great kid appeal and is well suited to the reading needs of three- to seven-year-olds. Plus, no sign of the dreaded WBN.

I have to say, I do think this is the only time I’ve ever seen a poem from Maurice Sendak’s wonderful Chicken Soup with Rice anthologized—“January.” The other surprise is a snippet of Dr. Seuss, “We have two ducks. One blue. One black....” (Which makes me wonder, how much did they have to pay for the privilege of using those?) Among the many other poets Prelutsky features are Bobbi Katz, Judith Viorst, Myra Cohn Livingston, Aileen Fisher, Karla Kushkin, and Lilian Moore. His collection is perfect for having fun with words and for getting started with poetry. I should point out that there are a lot of poems squeezed onto the pages of Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, but the visual organization is clear enough that all but the very youngest readers should be able to follow it.

Jane Yolen, AKA Madame Versatile, recently gave us another poetry collection for small children, Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry (Candlewick, 2007). Her co-editor is Andrew Fusek Peters and her illustrator is Polly Dunbar. Which means that here is, not only a little poem, but the best of both worlds—American Yolen working with two Brits to create something that's simply gorgeous.

The collection is divided into four sections: Me, Myself and I; Who Lives in My House? I Go Outside; and Time for Bed. This book really, truly is for small children, probably ages two to five. It contains far fewer poems than Prelutsky’s collection, but the presentation is stunning, with only one or two poems per spread, each encompassed by light, fresh illustrations. Even the font is large and simple, sans serif so that a kindergartener could read it with some help.

The poets represented here are from both the U.S. and Great Britain. Though all of the poems are uncomplicated and many are funny, the editors manage to work in some nice imagery along the way. For example, here’s an excerpt from Berlie Doherty’s poem, “Grandpa”:“Grandpa’s hands are as rough as/Garden sacks/And as warm as pockets....” We also find “Bumblebee,” not the piece of writing for which Margaret Wise Brown is best known, but a poem with one of my favorite similes of all time: “Where are you taking/Your golden plunder/Humming along/Like baby thunder?”

Here’s a Little Poem avoids the indignity of “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”; instead we get bedtime poems like Dennis Lee’s, which begins, “Silverly,/Silverly,/Over the/Trees,/The moon drifts/By on a/Runaway/Breeze.”

I’ll add that any “first collection of poems,” even Yolen’s, should be preceded or at least joined by a good Mother Goose. The best one I’ve come across is My Very First Mother Goose, edited by Iona Opie and brilliantly illustrated by Rosemary Wells (Candlewick, 1999). After whetting your young child’s appetite with Mother Goose, you might consider reading the anthologies I’ve described in the following order: Here’s a Little Poem, Climb into My Lap, Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, My First Oxford Book of Poems, and The Usborne Book of Poems for Young Children. Once a week could even be poetry night at bedtime, with the other six nights saved for narrative and other picture books.

One final note: I’ve observed that most editors of poetry collections for children can’t resist slipping in a couple of their own poems. The question I always ask is, how do these poems hold up in comparison to the rest of the book? So here’s a quick report for you: Philip Hawthorn gives us “The Train from Loch Brane,” an adaptation of an anonymous poem called “Have You Ever Seen?” and “Classrhymes.” All three poems are pleasant, but not outstanding. John Foster does not include any of his own poems in his collection. Lee Bennett Hopkins offers up “My Name” and “Toy Telephone,” both clever and fun. He also retells a poem, “Five Great Big Dinosaurs.”

For his part, Jack Prelutsky gives us six poems: “Whistling,” “The House Mouse,” “Skeleton Parade,” “The Mistletoe,” “Sometimes,” and “Somersaults.” All six are well done, but I thought “Sometimes” was the most memorable. In any case, Prelutsky has much better poems in several of his own collections. Jane Yolen’s poems, “Recipe for Green” and “Dream Maker,” are both very good. I wasn’t as pleased by her daughter Heidi E.Y. Stemple’s poem, “Ice Cream Cone,” which is cute, but not striking.

These five anthologies are a way of dipping your toes into the friendly waters of children’s poetry. Eventually I’ll take a look at anthologies for slightly older children and then collections by individual poets. There are so many wonderful poets out there—Shel Silverstein, Kristine O’Connell George, and Valerie Worth are just a few of my favorites. But the five books I've talked about make a good starter set. Throw in the Mother Goose and you’re ready to play Pied Piper, leading your child toward an enduring love of words.