School Library Journal Review
| Gr 2-5-Beginning with the translucent, plastic jacket and red fabric bookmark, this title is a keepsake to treasure. Here, love is not just valentines and roses, but also an ode to a canoe and a description of the pleasures of penny candy. The mostly one-page selections are by William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, and Jack Prelutsky, among others, and also include old rhymes and folk songs. What really brings these verses alive are the soft and appealing color-pencil illustrations and exquisite book design. There are drawings on each page, some only gentle depictions of a bird on a windowsill or a bowl of apples and pears, while others fill the page and allow the poem to become part of the art. Each illustration shows respect for the words, whether it's the bright-eyed vision of a youngster that accompanies Paul-Jean Toulet's "Black Girl" or the crying he-lizard and she-lizard in Federico García Lorca's "Song." While many of these poems appear in other collections, the unifying theme and enchanting artwork will have young readers asking for this book over and over again.-Kristen Oravec, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Strongsville, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Booklist Review
| Gr. 5^-8. There probably cannot be too many books of little love poems, so here is one laden with just the right kind to be copied carefully onto paper hearts. They are short and very dear, and though compiler Smith has included a number of his own winsome offerings, others he has chosen cover a wide territory. Shakespeare and Herrick and Anonymous share these candy-colored pages with Karla Kuskin, Jack Prelutsky, Nancy Willard, and Eleanor Farjeon, among others. Brooke Astor's piece is lovely and tart: "Love is an apple, round and firm, / without a blemish or a worm. / Bite into it and you will find / you've found your heart and lost your mind." Flowers and fruit figure mightily: Robert Frost rings changes on "rose is a rose," and a translation from Marceline Desbordes-Valmore's French casts roses upon the wind and waves. Prelutsky is direct: "I love you more than applesauce." Jane Dyer's illustrations, which range in size from postage stamp to full page, from tailpiece to border, in colored pencil, are very nice indeed; however, it's a pity that the childish format and pictures will probably deter teenagers; the appeal here is probably for middle-school and adult audiences. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido |
Horn Book Review
| Forty-five poems in rhyme and free verse pay homage to the many experiences of love. Affection both romantic and platonic finds expression in verses by Shakespeare, Myra Cohn Livingston, Langston Hughes, and others. Playfulness permeates many of the poems, but the volume feels like a gift book for starry-eyed adults. Soft colored-pencil illustrations decorate every page and lend the book additional warmth. Ind. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Kirkus Review
| Smith has gathered often humorous, always amorous poems from the traditional to the new, from contributors with household names to the poetically omnipresent Anonymous. Among the stellar items are selections by Langston Hughes (``I could take the Harlem night/and wrap around you,/Take the neon lights and make a crown''), Kenneth Koch (``One day the Nouns were clustered in the streets./An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty''), Donald Hall (``Chipmunks jump, and/Greensnakes slither./Rather burst than/Not be with her''), and Robert Frost (``The rose is a rose,/And was always a rose,/But the theory now goes/That the apple's a rose,/And the pear is, and so's/The plum, I suppose''--playing on the old rhyme ``If Apples Were Pears,'' which is also included). Cock Robin is here, as are such characters as the Old Woman and the Marmalade Man; Jack Prelutsky and William Shakespeare also make appearances, and so does the former poet laureate himself: ``Now touch the air softly,/Swing gently the broom./I'll love you till windows/Are all of a room.'' Dyer contributes delicate, colored pencil drawings to the book, which is about the same size as a valentine. (index) (Poetry. 4-10) |
