Great Poetry Books for Children
We Say Good-bye to National Poetry Month
We kicked off National Poetry Month with a terrific poetry book and we’ll end the month the same way!
Let’s look at CHANGES: A Child’s First Poetry Collection by Charlotte Zolotow with illustrations by Tiphanie Beeke and an introduction by Zolotow’s daughter, writer Crescent Dragonwagon (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky; $16.99, Ages 3 and up). The late, great, award-winning author and poet, Charlotte Zolotow, wrote many of the poems I learned as a child. Perhaps you recall some of them, too.
Now with this collection of her seasonal poetry gathered together for the first time, you can share the 28 poems and watch youngsters experience the same joy you did upon hearing them years ago. The selection of poems begins with spring and finishes in winter. The book closes with a touching poem called So Will I that might even bring a tear to your eye as it did to mine. In this poem a young narrator recounts hearing his grandfather’s beautiful memories of nature from his youthful days. This poem, like the others, as Dragonwagon so aptly points out, is “deceptively simple, transparent and refreshing as a glass of clean, clear, cold spring-water.” Drink up!
The opening poem, Change, with its subtle message, is one of my favorites. Here’s how it begins:
This summer
still hangs
heavy and sweet
with sunlight
as it did last year.
In addition to Zolotow’s cyclical poems with evocative titles such as The Spring Wind, Crocus, By the Sea, Beetle, The Leaves and The First Snow, another treat of Changes: A Child’s First Poetry Collection is that it’s full of gorgeous illustrations. Beeke’s watercolor artwork is vibrant and cheerful, composed with a light touch and full heart. With each turn of the page, there’s something pleasing to look at whether it’s a small insect on a book in The Fly or a snowy woods teeming with life in Here.
In this centenary of Zolotow’s birth, it’s wonderful that we can celebrate her contribution to children’s literature, and recognize the brilliance of her poetry which continues to resonate today as strongly as it did when first written.
– Reviewed by Ronna Mandel