Dusky Poetry: Dark Emperor

I read this as a picture book, which means I forced my fourth grader to read it with me. Unfortunately, he has a violent allergy to poetry, so the Cybils Poetry Finalist Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman had a bit of an uphill climb. We compromised on a poem a night, and at the the end we leafed back through the book to look at the artwork (illustrated by Rick Allen) in its entirety.

The poems were good. P noticed alliteration and we liked some of the false rhymes and the imagery often spun into delicious territory. The facts on opposite pages let P get his curmudgeonly feet dry of the poetry. But no single poem really called to me. The moon's progress across the pages delighted me, although I initially mistook it for the setting sun, which didn't make sense at all (east?). It's my favorite poetry book of the group so far, but I'm hoping for more. I think the illustrations set the mood more than the poems do, and the science facts add a lot. I see why it won a Newbery Honor.  B

I think the Amazon link benefits the Cybils group, but I doubt it will ever get clicked. I have a very private blog.