Tomie’s Little Book of Poems

I snapped a few “Caught Reading” pictures of Benny last night and decided I’d share the little gem of a book he was looking at for today’s Poetry Friday offering.  That’s sort of backwards to how it all came about, though, really:   I took this little book, which I guess we’ve had since Lulu was a baby, to the YMCA on Wednesday afternoon as one of only a few options to keep Benny and maybe even the DLM happy for the hour we’re there.   While I had the DLM in my lap reading to him for a few minutes, I came across a wonderful poem by Marci Ridlon in this little anthology.  The poem is entitled “Open Hydrant,” and while it’s not exactly the right season to appreciate the poem, summer hangs on through September in Alabama with enough hot and humid tenacity for the music of this poem to make me long for a run through the hydrant myself.  Here’s a snippet from the beginning:

Water rushes up

and gushes,

cooling summer’s sizzle.

This poem is replete with alliteration and one can positively hear the water spraying from the hydrant while reading it.  Lovely and oh, so cool!  I determined on Wednesday that this will be my first poem to share for this Friday’s poetry tea time.

This little board book anthology is (obviously) just right for little hands, and the poems have lots of kid-appeal.  The poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson, Dorothy Aldis, Aileen Fisher, Judith Viorst, Nikki Giovanni, and others all make appearances in this little volume.  I’ve yet to meet a little kid who doesn’t appreciate Tomie DePaola’s illustrations, and the short poems plus the pictures make the ideal combination for a first poetry book.  Highly Recommended.  (Penguin, 2004)