Birds, Beasts, and Fishes: A Selection of Animal Poems

An illustrated collection of animal poems from around the world

Grade 3 Up-- A collection of 53 outstanding poems about creatures, whether they be bird, insect, reptile, fish, or mammal. The works span ancient times to modern, and poets represented include Boethius, Coleridge, Tennyson, Blake, and Lear, as well as Ted Hughes, D. H. Lawrence, and William Carlos Williams. The introduction contains a strong message about conservation and presents the poems as a key to looking closer at the vigor and variety of the living world around us. The choices are excellent, some familiar, but most often unusual. They are not specifically children's poems per se, but are works made accessible to children by their rhythm, alliteration, rhyme, subject, and theme. All sorts of moods are evoked--humorous, serious, thoughtful, and reverant. The selections are sometimes complex, sometimes simple, but never condescending. Readers are allowed to enjoy the words and the motion of the poem, and let meaning dawn. The artwork, oil paintings on hardwood, is bold and stylized, and deceptively simple. It captures all the moods of the words and, while maintaining a consistent look throughout, manage to take on a variety of styles and textures, paying tribute along the way to the work of Rousseau and the primitive style of American folk art. This collection is for older readers than Eric Carle's Animals Animals (Philomel, 1989), and does not duplicate that volume. While slimmer, it has more of the sophistication and appeal of Talking to the Sun (Holt, 1985). --Annette Curtis Klause, Montgomery County Department of Public Libraries, MD
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fifty or so poems, grouped as the title suggests and varying in difficulty but generally of high quality, from traditional rhymes and familiar masters (Coleridge, Tennyson) to challenging and intriguing modern works (Sandburg, Philip Larkin). Touches of humor lighten the mix (Ogden Nash); since many entries are not from ``children's'' poets (though they will appeal to able children), there's much that will be new to readers. Cartwright's glowing stylized illustrations appear on virtually every page. An unusually handsome volume that fulfills its creators' aim of ``portray[ing] a living world [of] vigor and vitality,'' where ``William Blake's tiger and Ted Hughes' jaguar meet in our terror and delight.'' Glossary (19 obscure words); index. (Poetry. 6+) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.