A list for reflection, rumination, wonder, celebration, and gratitude as the days get darker and shorter. May you find a little warmth and light in these works this blustery season!
Each poem in this inventive and whimsical book is told in the voice of an animal (or animals) experiencing winter in all its wonder and hardship. The poems’ lush and almost magical perspectives are balanced and contextualized by little…
This book takes the form of an epistle (a fancy, poetic word for a letter) cataloguing the various parts and pieces of our world—its “curves / and prickles / and parallels / . . . all shapes that repeat”—as well as the kinds of journeys we…
This book details the larger cycle of the seasons, illustrating the ongoing and ephemeral nature of each season. As the author writes early on, “Fingers and toes freeze / and cold makes my nose sneeze. / Turn the heat on, / then winter is…
As the old saying goes, the only thing that is constant is change. This book encourages its readers to consider this essential fact of life by highlighting in the text and in the accompanying illustrations how each color appears and…
Kitty O’Meara’s illustrated book-length poem AND THE PEOPLE STAYED HOME chronicles the author’s experiences and observations during the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic in March 2020. The poem describes a variety of individual lock-down…
This Christian-themed book of poetry imagines what thirteen different animals would say “to welcome / and comfort / Baby Jesus / lying in a / manger” after gaining the power of speech at midnight on Christmas Eve. In each poem, the animals…
The poems and visuals in this book concern the seasonal rituals that occur once that first frost—or “cold snap!"—begins the “nippy, / crisp" time of winter. I would be remiss not to mention the poem “Leaving the Library,” which finds a…
Shel Silverstein’s classic collection of humorous verse for children with accompanying drawings and doodles revels in the weird and magical world of childhood while also offering poignant observations and perspectives that adults can enjoy…
Naomi Shihab Nye, born in St. Louis and the Young People’s Poet Laureate for the 2019-2021 years, brings a tender and insightful eye to all corners of daily life. Her work is both accessible and essential for young people and adults,…
This anthology explores all the various pleasures and pains, the everyday delights and difficulties of being in a family. From poems about mothers, father, siblings, pets, and other extended family relations, anthology-compiler Belinda…
