Poetry for Young People: Animal Poems - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402709269 ISBN 13: 9781402709265

Publisher: Sterling, 2004

Synopsis

The writers include Blake, Dickinson, Tennyson, Yeats, Wordsworth, and Keats. The captivating paintings by Simona Mulazanni make every page a delight. And the subject—animals, big and small, wild and tame— has an irresistible appeal to children. William Blake’s “The Tyger” burns bright in the lush image that accompanies the verse. Hillaire Belloc pays tribute to an elephant in a short, witty stanza accompanied by an adorable picture of the creature sitting on a small wood stool. Among the other poems are Marianne Moore’s “A Jellyfish” and Edward Lear’s charming, songlike “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
A Selection of Scholastic Book Clubs.

John Hollander has written A Crackling of Thorns (chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets), as well as literary criticism and children’s books. He has served as editor for many poetry collections, among them An Anthology of Poems for Young People (with Harold Bloom). He is currently the Sterling Professor of English at Yale.

Simona Mulazanni is a successful and much loved children’s book artist in Italy.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-6–William Blake's "The Tyger" and Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" are just 2 of the 33 classic children's poems included in this collection, which is similar in style and format to earlier series titles. The book opens with an interesting five-page essay about different types of animal poems. Each offering is prefaced by information about the background of the poem or poet and some of the imagery used. The paragraphs are informative, but tend to overpower the shorter poems. Many of the pages contain a full-color illustration without borders or white space. The poems are superimposed on the art in small font, sometimes black on light, other times white on dark, which makes some of the entries difficult to read. However, Mulazzani's painterly style does a good job of mirroring the mood of each piece. This is a decent choice for traditional fare, but those looking for more contemporary poems about animals should consider Lee Bennett Hopkins's Hoofbeats, Claws & Rippled Fins: Creature Poems (HarperCollins, 2002).–Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT

From Booklist

Gr. 5-7. Although animal poetry anthologies for young people abound, this one from the Poetry for Young People series sets itself apart by featuring a number of writers more commonly encountered in high-school and college literature courses than in elementary and middle-school classrooms. A few of the poems appear in translation, but most represent the works of English and American writers such as Blake, Carroll, Dickinson, Emerson, Frost, -Keats, Lawrence, Lear, Melville, Roethke, Rosetti, Stevens, Swenson, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Yeats. Each poem is preceded by a short introduction commenting on the poet and the verse, and most are accompanied by brief notes defining words and phrases. Handsome, stylized paintings fill the pages with color. Varying widely in the accessibility of their language, the poems are occasionally difficult to read in a mechanical sense because they are superimposed on a patterned illustration. Recommended for larger collections. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Sterling
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1402709269
• ISBN 13: 9781402709265
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Editor: Hollander John
• Illustrator: Mulazzani Simona