Inside Out: Children’s Poets Discuss Their Work

The terrific JonArno Lawson has put together a completely charming book, INSIDE OUT: CHILDREN’S POETS DISCUSS THEIR WORK. Delightfully illustrated, this small book (just right for fitting in a hand) contains twenty-four marvelous poems. Each is accompanied by a commentary by its creator and these are fascinating and delightful, invariably as poetic and quirky as the poems themselves. The poets included are John Agard, Carol Ann Duffy, Philip de Vos, Jackie Kay, X.J. Kennedy, JoArno Lawson (and if you don’t know his other award-winning books of children’s poetry go find them now!), Dennis Lee, Margaret Mahy, Adrien Mitchell, Roger McGough, Stephen Mitchell, Pat Mora, Grace Nichols, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sally Farrell Odgers, Jack Prelutsky, Annushka Ravishankar, Christopher Reid, Michael Rosen, Jeanne Steig, Matthew Sweeney, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Richard Wilbur, and Nancy Willard.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.