When the Frost Is on the Punkin

These poems by James Whitcomb Riley are a celebration of life and the changing seasons. Painter Glenna Lang interprets Riley's verse with pictures of a young girl waking into a farm morning, doing chores, and playing in the early hours of what promises to be a golden Autumn day.

This poem celebrates autumn and its changes in the rural landscape from a young farm child's point of view. Riley (1849-1916), the "Hoosier Poet" and author of another once widely learned and recited work, "Little Orphan Annie," is most often remembered as a "dialect" poet. Contemporary children will need this helpful background--included in a brief afterword--in order to better comprehend his idiomatic verse here--words such as "medder" for meadow, "hosses" for horses and "furries" for furrows, though mellifluous, need explanation. Further, few children in today's increasingly urban landscape will understand the repeating phrase "the fodder's in the shock." Employing her trademark soft shapes, Lang's handsome paintings adroitly evoke the season's richness with economical detailing and blocks of deep autumnal colors. They feature a contemporary child and/or her playful cat on each page and, while not providing a word-by-word reflection of the text, their interpretation will be an aid to understanding. Ages 4-6.
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