Childhood Haikus: Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright and Nina Crews

The haiku from Richard Wright's childhood came from the closely observed landscapes and animals he knew, the railroad trains that rumbled down the middle of the town, the caws of the crows and the rustling of the leaves, a dusty road down which his bike travels, the blue of the skies in which his yellow kite rises, and a sunset that colors and changes everything. --Nina Crews

Empty railroad tracks. And the rails leap with life.

Like the classic style dictates, Richard Wright's haikus capture a tiny memory, a moment in time as a child might see it.

Suddenly mindful,

the tree was looking at me,

each green leaf alive.

In her Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright (Millbrook Press), artist Nina Crews sets Wright's haiku against photos of real boys in the real outdoors, arranged together to set off the meaning and feeling of each haiku, the photos and the text each a slice of life, caught in the moment. For reading aloud and for poetry lessons, this book is perfect for youngsters learning to listen to the music of words and to write their own poetry.
Says Publishers Weekly, "The clustered, overlapping photographs scatter and dissipate at the edges of the spreads, subtly reflecting the evanescence of the moments Wright describes."

Spooky Spoof! Mother Ghost by Rachel Kolar

WEE WILLIE WEREWOLF RUNS THROUGH THE TOWN
AND WITH A HOWL HE CRIES,
"ARE ALL THE MONSTERS IN THEIR BEDS?
THE SUN'S ABOUT TO RISE!"

Poor Mother Goose! Her venerable rhymes and tales are so familiar, making them fair game for parody, and Rachel Kolar's enticing Mother Ghost: Nursery Rhymes for Little Monsters (Sleeping Bear Press, 2018) has a holiday blast spoofing those famous verses with a Halloween twist.

Artist Roland Garrigue's rococo style and black and purple palette make the most of the Halloween tropes--bare, leafless trees provide perches for ghosties, and a zombie-esque Mary Quite Contrary sits on a tombstone eating worms--and that spider for dessert.

Old Mother Hubbard goes to her cupboard for a dog bone, only to have a skeleton claim it for one of his own. A spooky bat is the stand-in for the homey Mrs. Goose, and instead of a little lamb, her Mary has a pet ghost, white as a cloud, who follows her everywhere wearing his shroud. And as for that other nursery rhyme Mary....

MARY, MARY, TALL AND SCARY,
HOW DOES YOUR GRAVEYARD GROW?
WITH BURIED BONES AND CARVED GRAY STONES,
AND LITTLE GHOSTS ALL IN A ROW!

All of Kolar's nursery characters are decked out as familiar Halloween characters as the diddle-diddle cat fiddles for a ghoul, while Little Boy Drac blows his horn in this seasonal spoof of an old favorite collection that most kids will find rhyming, irresistible chuckle-bait. A first choice for children's holiday library collections and a sure-fire funny read-aloud.

Are You My Mother? Hello, I'm Here! by Helen Frost

I'm out in the world--
I don't know where.
Mama! Papa!
Hello, I'm here!

Hatching is hard!

The baby sandhill crane has a lot of work just to get out of his shell. But then, what does he do?

He tries to stand up. One leg, then the other.

Hey, who's this?

Are you my brother?

The two chicks try their long legs and start to wander toward the water. There's something they're supposed to do there. Should they wade in to see?

No! Snapping turtles!

Stay close to me.

Mama strides swiftly over to head the twin chicks off before they wade in. She spreads her wide wings protectively as she quickly diverts their attention with something to eat...

... a snail for a treat!

One chick admires a group of cranes flying overhead. Is that what Mama can do with her long wings? Will he learn to fly like that, too?

The birth of two new American sandhill cranes is a big deal, but now it's time for a rest in the nest, in Helen Frost's latest nature poem, Hello, I'm Here! (Candlewick Press, 2019), which describes the first day of sandhill chicks. Despite their format as rhyming quatrains, Frost's verses convey some engaging nature science about these tall, impressive birds capable of migrating to the arctic portions of North America and Siberia on their strong, almost seven-foot wings. Rick Lieder's lovely closeup color photographs illustrate Frost's expressive rhyming narrative in a way that will help young readers identify with the little sandhill cranes' first days as they do what all little ones do--eat, explore, learn, nap, and follow their mothers. "These simple abcb quatrains scan beautifully--a good thing, since this will likely be requested over and over. Perfectly matched text and images make this a grand entrance," says School Library Journal.

Awesome Autumn: Wonderfall by Michael Hall

GENTLE
BREEZES.
MY
ACORNS
DROP.
PLINK
PLUNK
PLOP.

The first acorn of autumn falls. The squirrels rejoice and go into their fall feeding and harvest frenzy. Color begin to bloom here and there among the green leaves.

In Dutifall, the big yellow school bus appears at the corner, and the dutiful, but rueful kids clamber on with their new backpacks and new shoes. But then, as if trying to make up for it, it's Beautifall, with the oak tree dressed in its best, its brightest colors. And then...

PLENTIFALL.

APPLES,
APPLES,
READY
TO
MUNCH.
YELLOW,
RED,
GREEN,
CRUNCH
CRUNCH
CRUNCH.

Crates of new-picked apples and late vegetables reveal the plentiful harvest. And then comes Frightfall, with kids disguised as black cats and ghosts and grinning jack-o' lanterns, carrying plastic cauldrons filled with colored candies.

But not all of us are as joyful as the squirrels and sweets-loving kids. The end of summer brings cooling breezes and its own colors, but also a sort of nostalgia for the promise of spring and the fullness of summer we now know is past.

Michael Hall's Wonderfall (Greenwillow Books, 2016) captures the beauty and the familiar rituals of fall, the green of his oak tree giving way to new colors, the school bus reappearing at the corner, the richness of the harvest and the chores of raking and mulching. Then comes Frightfall, with the disguises and giggles of the trick-or-treaters, and then the first strong, harsh winds that strip the last browning leaves from the tree, now bare, "the beauty of the bone," as poet John Updike puts it. Then comes Wistfall, as we say goodbye to the geese and the other retreating creatures. And then comes Watchfall...

WATCHFALL

SEE
THE MIST.
HEAR
THE QUIET.
SMELL
THE COLD.
WILL
THIS NIGHT
BRING
THE FIRST...
SNOWFALL?

With a lyric sense of the longing and beauty that autumn brings, Hall's new book bring simple spare verse, arranged vertically like his iconic tree, that itself becomes the setting for each stage of the passage through the season, from the first acorn's fall to the snowfall that brings out the sleds. Living mostly in the present, children still have a sense of nostalgia about the passage of time, symbolized here by the tree, in which the only constants are its squirrels. But the tree has its own voice, as it goes into its pro tem dormancy: I'm resting now but I'll be back.

The author's wordplay with the sound of the prefix "ful" and "fall" adds whimsical but poignant meaning as it comes down at last to a snowful scene of the first snowfall of winter. Artist Hall digitalizes his acrylic-painted cut paper illustrations, moving in double-page spreads as time makes its linear progress with every page turn through the season. Bold colors and geometric shapes give this book a look that will appeal to the youngest, but older primary readers will feel the undercurrent of emotion that the changing of the seasons, the relentless passage of time, brings. Among the seasonal concept books of the year, Wonderfall is the one book to choose, a must-have purchase for public and school libraries. "A haunting journey through autumn and a lovely triumph," writes Kirkus in their starred review.

Tea for Two: We Go Together by Calef Brown

WE GO TOGETHER

We go together
like fingers and thumbs.
Basses and drums,
Pastries and crumbs.

A sweet and charming little book, subtitled A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse, Calef Brown's just published We Go Together!: A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse (Houghton Mifflin, 2013) is a tribute to best buddies, poems in praise of friendship and love between two who are on the same wavelength.

I find it sweet--
the way you complete
not only my sentences
but my paragraphs, too.

In eighteen short poems with rather loose rhyme and rhythm schemes Calef Brown's lyrics combine humor with sophisticated insight into human relationships, such as in "Scrootin' Eyes," a poem which plays upon the pun with "scrutinize" while also probing the feeling behind the friend's facial expressions. In "Snow Globes" a child tells Daddy how much she appreciates the souvenirs he always brings back from  trips:

... a tiny diorama.
The one from Peru
has Machu Picchu
and a llama.

Just right for primary kids, but with vocabulary-expanding language and a depth of meaning that can even stick in the heart of a grownup, We Go Together!: A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse is a timely little volume to treasure for Valentine's Day or anytime.

On the Beach: Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems by Kate Coombs

TIDELINES

OCEAN DRAWS ON THE SAND.
WITH TRINKETS OF SHELL AND STONE.
THE WAY I WRITE ON THE SIDEWALK,
WITH A STICK OF CHALK AT HOME.

SEA SIGNS HER NAME IN LETTERS
LONG AND WAVY AND CLEAR.
SAYING, "DON'T FORGET ME--
---I WAS HERE...
WASSS HERE,
WASSSSSS HERE."

Inexorably drawn to the sea as we are, humans have a fascination with its edge, where land ends and the ocean begins. What we find and see there has a mystery, a glimpse of life in another world, one where water is the breath of life and the source of everything. From its sandy-beach-with-footprints endpapers to the last sigh of the retreating tide, poet Kate Coombs latest, Water Sings Blue (Chronicle Books, 2012), is like a day at the beach, leaving the dark town "with its closed brown shutters and doors" to take a boat down the bay to shore, where seagulls soar and Frank the Hermit Crab sets up his real estate office--with everything from a modest periwinkle cabin to a kingly conch shell for the wealthy beachgoer--and the beachcomer can shop in a tidal pool ("They carry everything there... mussels by the bushels..."). There are lyrical metaphoric lines, evoking Shelley, such as these from "Sand's Story."

WE USED TO BE ROCKS.
WE USED TO BE STONES.
WE STOOD PROUD AS CASTLES,
ALTARS AND THRONES.

NOW WE GRIND AND GRUMBLE,
HUDDLED AND GRAVE,
AT THE TOUCH OF OUR BREAKER
AND MAKER, THE WAVE.

Coombs' metaphors can be comic, as she compares seagulls to beagles ("All they think about is food!"), until they are transformed instantly when they leap into the air:

... WHEN SEAGULLS TAKE WING,
THEY BECOME A NEW THING.
ATTAINING SOME DIGNITY.

BUT BEAGLES ARE ROUND
AND REMAIN ON THE GROUND,
PRETTY MUCH DIGNITY FREE.

Water Sings Blue lets the readers soar with the seagulls, swim for their lives from the shark and cringe from the "black hole" of the oarfish's maw, undulate and trail with the jellyfish, shine and splash with seafoam, and lease a summer place from Frank the Hermit Crab, in a wonderful collection of lovely and lyrical, humorous and ironic, and downright captivating poems in many styles, haiku to couplets, free verse to classic form. This new book is as refreshing as a sea breeze and as heart-touching as an "ILY" written in the sand. Perhaps the best poetry book for children of all ages of this season, finely and fittingly illustrated by the talented Meilo So.

As the Wall Street Journal reviewer says, "A feeling of sweet delicacy pervades the pages," and Publishers Weekly adds, "Coombs punctuates her sweeping, lullaby-like poems about the ocean with surprising personification and unexpected imagery."

I say, get this book and read it to anyone who will listen, really listen to it. Like holding a conch shell to the ear, it is the sound of the sea.