Eight Current Children's Books: A Mixed Bag

William Cole is a well-known and widely respected anthologist, and he lives up to his reputation in his A Book of Animal Poems. One might quibble about the omission of Blake's tiger or Burns' mouse, but it would be an ungrateful response to a collection which tries to avoid the over-anthologized poem and which gathers so many remarkable poems that are not easily accessible elsewhere. Mr. Cole is obviously a voracious reader of poetry and completely au courant. He includes excellent animal poems by Edward Field, John Haines, James Harrison, Sandra Hochman, Marge Piercy, and W. D. Snodgrass. What was most fascinating about the anthology for me, however, was coming across gems by little known writers such as Thomas W. Shapcott and Russell Hoban.

The Finches

A tiny spill of bird-things in a swirland crest and tide that splashed the garden's edge—a chatterful of finches filled the hedgeand came upon us with a rush and curland scattering of wings. They were so smallI laughed to see them ludicrously gayamong the thorny stalks, and all that daythey teased me with their tiny-throated call.

They were a jest, a scampering of neatbrisk sweets, they were all such frivolitiesI did not think to call them real, I wastoo merry with their flight to see the heatthat angered their few days, to recognizemy own stem hungers in their fragile cries.

—Thomas W. Shapcott

Maine Sea Gulls

Two gray-winged farmers of the sea, they rideThe drowsing summer wind to reap the tide, And as they go they slowly squawk together,Chatting as farmers do about the crops and weather."I look for rain," says one. "Wind's in the east.""Clamming's been poor," his friend says, "but at leastThe herring's coming in across the bay.""Ayeh," they both agree, and flap away.

—Russell Hoban

Cole's collection offers a pleasing variety, from the strong lyrical pieces of D. H. Lawrence to the lively humor of Hilaire Belloc, and the poems are well complemented by the superb drawings of Robert Andrew Parker. In his Editor's Note, Mr. Cole comments: "This isn't a book to gulp down at one sitting. Pick it up now and then, and if you get to thinking about a certain animal, let's hope you'll find a poem about it here." More than that, A Book of Animal Poems is a book that can be read over the years, one that would be enjoyable and satisfying to a person from his early youth to his old age.

Myra Cohn Livingston's What a Wonderful Bird the Frog Are is a delightful collection of witty and zany poems, as the title suggests. The anthology ranges from first century B. C. Greek satirists (all of them from Dudley Fitts' translation of The Greek Anthology) to recent comic poems by Richard Wilbur and William Jay Smith. Although the anthology does not reflect the scope of an anthologist like Mr. Cole, the many favorites gathered here make for lively reading. What a Wonderful Bird the Frog Are would be an excellent anthology to use on a junior high level, where so many students are conditioned to think of poetry as mysterious or dull.

Peep Show by Pamela Blake is by far the most handsome book in terms...