The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems

Toast a marshmallow, be a tree in winter, read braille — Paul B. Janeczko and Richard Jones invite you to enjoy an assortment of poems that inform and inspire.

Today I walked outside and spied
a hedgehog on the hill.
When she and I met eye to eye,
she raised up straight and still.

Be they practical (how to mix a pancake or how to bird-watch) or fanciful (how to scare monsters or how to be a snowflake), the poems in this book boast a flair and joy that you won’t find in any instruction manual. Poets from Kwame Alexander to Pat Mora to Allan Wolf share the way to play hard, to love nature, and to be grateful. Soft, evocative illustrations will encourage readers to look at the world with an eye to its countless possibilities.

Contributors include:

Kwame Alexander
Calef Brown
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Margarita Engle
Ralph Fletcher
Douglas Florian
Helen Frost
Martin Gardner
Charles Ghigna
Nikki Grimes
Anna E. Jordan
Karla Kuskin
Irene Latham
J. Patrick Lewis
Marjorie Maddox
Elaine Magliaro
Pat Mora
Christina Rossetti
Monica Shannon
Marilyn Singer
Robert Louis Stevenson
Charles Waters
April Halprin Wayland
Steven Withrow
Allan Wolf

Paul B. Janeczko (1945–2019) was a poet and teacher who edited numerous award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including A Poke in the I, A Kick in the Head, A Foot in the Mouth, and The Death of the Hat, all of which were illustrated by Chris Raschka; Firefly July, illustrated by Melissa Sweet; and The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems, illustrated by Richard Jones. He also wrote Worlds Afire; Requiem: Poems of the Terezín Ghetto; Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing; Double Cross: Deception Techniques in War; The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and Secret Soldiers: How the U.S. Twenty-Third Special Troops Fooled the Nazis.

Richard Jones has worked for more than twenty years in the creative arts. He is the illustrator of numerous picture books, including Bird Builds a Nest and The Squirrels’ Busy Year, both written by Martin Jenkins. Richard Jones lives in Devon, England.