Poetry Review #1: Anthology by Lee Bennett Hopkins

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hopkins, Lee Bennett. 1990. GOOD BOOKS, GOOD TIMES! Illustrated by Harvey Stevenson. New York: Harperchildrens.

Lee Bennett Hopkins has compiled an engaging anthology of poems centered around the delightful world of books and reading in GOOD BOOKS, GOOD TIMES! The book contains a variety of poems from well-known and lesser-known poets including Jack Prelutsky, David McCord, Arnold Lobel, and Lee Bennett Hopkins himself. Each poem offers wide appeal to younger children, while encouraging them to get lost in reading, including Being Lost (p.5) by Karla Kuskin, "Being lost is the perfect way to pass the time on a sky blue day", and "Books fall open, you fall in, delighted where you've never been;" (p.6) by David McCord.

The anthology combines free verse and rhyming poems, with the majority containing rhyme. The length of poems also varies greatly, with one poem containing only twelve words (p.18), while several others are a full page long. Various other poetic elements are used by the poets including alliteration, "wise delve into wisdom, wit, and wherewithal" (David McCord, p. 6). Poet Isabel Joshlin Glaser (p.21) makes use of multiple poetic elements including onomatopoeia, assonance, and rhyming with, "Is bumbling and rumbling and groaning and moaning and snoring and roaring and dinosauring?" The flow and pace of the poems are well balanced and varied, with some poems that are light and whimsical, and others that are more deep and thought provoking.

The illustrations by Harvey Stevenson fit the poems nicely. They are a colorful blend of watercolors enveloping the poems within. One possible drawback to the illustrations is the fact that of the children represented in the poems are Caucasian; this anthology was published in 1990, which should be recent enough to have considered racial sensitivity.

The poems in this anthology were all written relatively recently, between 1965 and 1986, and all have a timeless feel. Children with a passion for reading will likely love the assortment. An index of authors and titles is also included.