Poems of Childhood - Hardcover

Anglund, Joan Walsh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152629610 ISBN 13: 9780152629618

Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books, 1996

Synopsis

When we are little and full of awe, the world is a big, exciting place. Joan Walsh Anglund expresses this sense of wonder perfectly in this collection of poems. Finding a mouse’s house, hiding safely beneath the covers during a wild winter storm-readers will delight in these sweetly captured magic moments.

About this title

About the Author

JOAN WALSH ANGLUND’s books have been beloved by readers of all ages for more than forty years. Her classics include A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, which was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year. She lives in rural New England.

Reviews

Greeting card verses and plenty of pastels make this volume by Anglund not much different from her previous books. Simple rhymes sentimentalize seasonal activities: playing in the leaves and sledding. Others describe childhood events: the wind stealing a kite, a child's anger over a broken toy, and a birthday party. In several places the clich‚s wear thin. One verse about friends in ``far-off places'' portrays a line of children in costumes more typical of 1950s notions of a global village than the current trend toward authenticity. Another poem, about going to bed in summertime, does not improve on Robert Lewis Stevenson. The illustrations, too, show little change (other than the addition of an occasional brown face amid the rosy cheeks), with few realistic portrayals of children. The book is strictly for collectors: Most readers need something more than two dots for eyes, for true human expression includes smiles and frowns--or at least noses and mouths. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Joan Walsh Anglund accompanies her trademark illustrations of doll-like children (bereft of mouths and noses) with equally pat verse in Poems of Childhood. A uniformly sing-song meter dominates: "Sometimes the wind is wicked; it's as naughty as can be," begins one poem about a lost kite. A Children's BOMC selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152629610
• ISBN 13: 9780152629618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32