Emily, Paperback/Michael Bedard

Descriere

From Michael Bedard and Caldecott-winning illustrator Barbara Cooney comes a " book to read aloud and share" about American poet Emily Dickinson and the young girl who befriends her ("SLJ"). A young girl who lives across the street from the reclusive Emily Dickinson gets her chance to meet the poet when her mother is invited to play the piano for Emily. The girl sneaks up to Emily's room and exchanges a small gift for an authentic poem, which is included in the book. " This fictionalized encounter is, like a Dickinson sonnet, a quiet gem unassuming upon first glance, it is in fact deeply lustrous, with new facets becoming apparent the longer one looks Bedard's unnamed narrator speaks with the piercing clarity and insight particular to sensitive children Bedard] uses diction and imagery that might have been the poet's own strong, sure language whose force derives from its very economy; small but potent details from nature and domesticity. Judiciously employing alliteration, rhyme, assonance and echoes--"Like flakes of flowers the words fell to the sheets. I listened to them fall and fell asleep"--his prose moves with the rhythms and lyricism of poetry, yet retains a child's straightforward, unselfconscious voice throughout. Caldecott Medalist Cooney's oils richly capture the story's subtly shifting moods, from the utter stillness of a street bathed in moonlight and swaddled in snow to the vigor of a sun-flooded room full of growing plants. They visually extend the text's Dickinsonian personification of nature ("There was no one there but winter, all in white") and contain skillful echoes of their own: at different points in the story the child and poet are shown sitting alone on the landings of their respective houses, a visual reinforcing of their special kinship. And in their tranquil beauty these paintings testify to the mysteries and wonders of even the everyday. "Publishers Weekly" In this imaginative and unusual picture book... the language of the text is lyric