Poetry Friday: Light Caught Inside
May 9th, 2008    by jules
I’m going to stray a bit this week from the usual share-a-random-poem moments on Fridays, which are always lovely, and tell you about two new picture books: The second is written in rhyme (rhyme that won’t make you want to gag)—and it just so happens that it’s an exemplary book for the wee, wee, wee’est in your life—and the first is by a picture book author who has been reading and writing poetry with children for many years (and who is also a visiting poet in schools), Susan Marie Swanson. And a beautemous book it is, indeed. I also snagged a spread from each book so that I can show you some of the art work inside.
To Be Like the Sun by Susan Marie Swanson and illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine (Harcourt, April 2008) is written, it’s safe to say, in a free verse style (I see that School Library Journal refers to it as free verse, too—”lyrical free verse,” at that). In this luminescent book, which celebrates both the sensual and abstract joys of summer, a young girl ponders a little sunflower seed in her hand:
“Hello, little seed,
striped gray seed.
Do you really know everything
about sunflowers?”
The girl then proceeds to break up the earth to plant her seed, considering the “real work down in the dark” the seed does:
“Not radish work or pumpkin,
not thistle work—
sunflower work.
All the instructions
are written in your heart.”

in a woman’s world. It was taken at a writing retreat I did with them at the house in Sonoma County”). I’d say waaaay less-stressed-out, since he’s all reclining in the sun there, looking like he’s just had a very filling breakfast. 
If there were any doubt to the reader that this was a biography of Lady Liberty, illustrator
Jules: Bonjour, indeed! It’s that time of the month again. We’re featuring a student of illustration today, this time the one and only
Want to see something neat? 
You know what’s great? Waking up and finding
Hello, all. We’ve decided to do a little bit of a reshuffle here at 7-Imp. Here’s why.
From now on, when it comes to reviewing books, GENERALLY SPEAKING, Jules will be focusing on picture books and middle grade lit, and Eisha will be concentrating on young adult and adult lit. We still reserve the right to read and review whatever we please, and OF COURSE we’ll still collaborate on the occasional