Skip to main content

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night

Image
By DeeDee
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
By Joyce Sidman
Illustrations by Rick Allen
Houghton Mifflin, 2010. 29 p. Juvenile nonfiction/poetry.

This recent recipient of a 2011 Newbery Honor couples really good writing with lovely illustrations. Sidman has written 12 poems about the night in a forest. Some are about animals, and others are about trees or the moon. Some of the poems are rhymed and metered, while others are free verse or concrete poems. The rhyming poems are lush and lyrical, with careful attention to meter and form. The free verse poems show sensitivity to the sound and rhythm of words.

Each of the poems is accompanied by a beautiful illustration done using the technique of etching. The artist puts down color, and then covers it with a black overcoat. Then he (Rick Allen in this case) scrapes away some of the black to reveal the color beneath. It is a good technique for a book about the night because it emphasizes the interplay of light and dark.

Finally, each spread has an information paragraph about the subject of the poem. The informational paragraphs are written in prose, but are so well crafted they are almost poem-like. Sidman includes some really interesting and unusual facts. The three elements combined--the good poetry, lovely illustrations and interesting information paragraphs make it a apt choice for Newbery Honor award.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Winter 2026 Book Boxes

By
Looking for a new read? We’ve got you covered! Check out one of our Book Boxes for kids ages 9-12. Each Book Box contains a book to check out, as well as envelopes filled with fun surprises that you can open as you read along. We have two new books available to check out! Boxes can be put on hold through the library website, and can picked up at the Circulation Desk. Our One Dead Spy and The Case of the Missing Marquess Book Boxes will each be available to pick up from December 19, 2025 through December 30, 2026. Each child aged 9-12 can check out each Book Box once during that time, so get one now to read during winter break, or wait until summer and check it out then! One Dead Spy By Nathan Hale New York : Amulet Books, 2012. 127 pages. Comic. This graphic novel tells the tale of Nathan Hale, one of America's first spies, who was hanged for espionage in 1776. But in this version, just before he is set to be hanged he is eaten by a giant book, which he uses to explain the revoluti...
Post a Comment
Read more