The spotlight is turned on the single events, the chance interactions, the moments that, in their ordinariness, are turning points masquerading as the everyday. In this sublime collection, the ‘eternal’ boyhood of setting traps, making dens, reading The Hardy Boys, spying on girls, worshipping cowboys, and playing hockey with frozen horse dung pucks gives way to sharp lessons about becoming a man – and to even harder ones about the coming of old age and infirmity. The world created in these poems allows us to feel, deeply, the sense of what is lost in adulthood and old age. This is not limited to the concrete – happy marriages, reliable health, friends, family – but tackles also the intense frustration of the loss of words, and of one’s voice in the music of life itself. Sometimes mischievous, always commanding, and often heartbreaking, The Days Run Away is the human condition, handled in the unflinching yet compassionate words of a master poet.
It's Stella Louella's library due date, but aghast! She can't find the book anywhere. Almost everyone in town joins in on the frantic search, and the wild book chase begins.
A powerful poem about Ona Judge's life and her self-emancipation from George Washington’s household. Ona Judge was enslaved by the Washingtons, and served the President's wife, Martha. Ona was widely known for her excellent skills as a seamstress, and was raised alongside Washington’s grandchildren. Indeed, she was frequently mistaken for his granddaughter. This poetic biography follows her childhood and adolescence until she decides to run away. Author Ray Anthony Shepard welcomes meaningful and necessary conversation among young readers about the horrors of slavery and the experience of house servants through call-and-response style lines. Illustrator Keith Mallett’s rich paintings include fabric collage and add further feeling and majesty to Ona’s daring escape. With extensive backmatter, this poem may serve as a new introduction to American slavery and Ona Judge's legacy.
A little bunny keeps runningaway from his mother in an imaginative and imaginary game of verbal hide-and-seek; children will be profoundly comforted by this lovingly steadfast mother who finds her child every time. The Runaway Bunny, first published in 1942 and never out of print, has indeed become a classic. Generations of readers have fallen in love with the gentle magic of its reassuring words and loving pictures.