
And if that weren’t enough to sell this book, it is accompanied by a CD of the poems read by the poets. Thanks to archival copies, today’s children can hear readings of Robert Frost and Langston Hughes, among others. There are also readings by Nikki Giovanni and J.R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien, I said. Not all of the poems are included on the CD, but enough for an hour’s worth of driving. (Well, when do you listen to CDs?)
And there is still more, because the book involves three illustrators who bring these poems to life. One illustrator may have led to an overly consistent style of art that wouldn’t have reflected the very different kinds of poems. But with three, we get a mix of styles while still keeping a general consistency. It would have been jarring to see radically different art styles, but though the illustrators each bring a unique flavor to the poem, the pictures flow well from one to another.
For the holiday season, package this book with a coupon for one-on-one reading time with the recipient, as it is truly a book to be shared.
3 comments:
thanks for this -- I'm going shopping now!
Loved the selections, really loved the recordings (some of which are of poets reading their own poems and some of which are of others reading poems not their own), hated the illustrations.
I prefer Caroline Kennedy's A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children illustrated by Jon Muth. The poems are wonderful (and as far ranging as in Poetry Speaks to Children), Kennedy's introductions to each section are perfect and Muth's illustrations are gorgeous.
You can hear a lot of poets, living and dead, read their works at the poetry archive. The children's section is quite extensive.
http://www.poetryarchive.org
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