Review: Wonderful Words

Wonderful Words edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Illustrated by Karen Barbour. Simon & Schuster, 2004 (0-689-83588-4) $16.95

"I'll plant in you
   a spring-seedling
   with bursting life
   while you are reading

I am the book
You are needing." 

Words rise and dance and spin; are piled like blocks; pierce the darkness; and wear long boots, hard boots in this collection of poems. Books, poems, writing, talking and even listening are what the words are about... and just as they should, they dazzle, warm and satisfy the ear when they're read aloud. The illustrations have a primitive, folk-art flair that occasionally crosses over into garishness, but most are good companions to the whimsical, wise and childlike moods of the wonderful words. (4 & up)

I just had to quote that poem... And then I had to share it. It's by Tom Robert Shields by the way--I have no idea who he is, but, to quote Cynthia Heimel, he is clearly a Zen Master.