Charlotte Zolotow would have turned 100 this year (she died in 2013), and these 28 poems, arranged by season, allow young readers to experience life's epiphanies through observations in nature.
The first poem, "Change" (originally published in River Winding in 1970) sets the stage for the collection, as a child describes herself in relation to the passing seasons. Tiphanie Beeke pictures a blonde girl who seems to mature from the left page to the right: "This summer/ still hangs/ heavy and sweet/ with sunlight/ as it did last year." She similarly experiences autumn, winter and spring as consistent, year to year. Zolotow ends with a surprise: "It is only I/ who have changed." For the concluding poem, "So Will I," Beeke portrays a boy on his grandfather's shoulders, imagining a future in which he will honor the man's memories ("white snow falling falling"; "the bluebird and thrush/ at twilight/ calling, calling./ He remembers long ago/ .../ And so will I/ so will I").
Zolotow's poems vary in rhyme, rhythm and mood, as changeable as life itself. For "Autumn," a child describes the shortening day as "the light long summer/ is grown old"; another child sees a harbinger of spring this way: "Little crocus/ like a cup,/ holding all that sunlight up!"
Zolotow's fans may wish that the poems' original publication dates had been included. But this is a small quibble in an ideal introduction to poetry's big ideas. Zolotow had a gift for describing singular moments from a child's eye–view. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness