Poet laureate J. Patrick Lewis contributes poems and curates this collection of 200 poems, with stunning photos sure to convert young readers into new poetry fans.
A close-up of a monarch caterpillar appears alongside a transparent chrysalis through which children can identify a monarch's wings. "What's a caterpillar?/ Little/ but a fly/ in waiting," reads Graham Denton's poem. Sometimes the poem prompts readers to look more closely at a creature featured in the photo, as with Valerie Worth's "Cow"; other times, the photo pulls readers in, such as "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ("He watches from his mountain walls,/ And like a thunderbolt he falls"). A barrel jellyfish seems to filter the sunlight breaking through the ocean's surface in the photo alongside Kelly Ramsdell Fineman's lines, "It's not made of jelly; it isn't a fish./ Mostly it drifts, but can move with a swish." Which came first, the poem or the picture? Either way, readers are the winners. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness