This book was a gift from my mother who is not only aware of my childhood love affair with almost all of Bill Martin Jr.'s book, but is also one of the few people who knows about my inkling of a dream to one day create beautiful multi-lingual books for young children. Clearly, it was a pleasure to get to delve into this collection this quarter. It is too hard to pick favorites but I am always fascinated to find out what inspires the individuals that always inspire me. I can only hope to one day be able to include to work of Bill Martin Jr. in a collection of pieces that have inspired me.

This large book is an anthology of almost 200 of Bill Martin Jr.’s favorite poems, and serves as a dedication to his memory. About a dozen different illustrators contributed to the book, which is divided into subsections based on subject matter. It also includes a forward by Eric Carle and an afterword by Steven Kellogg. ( )

This book is huge!! It is full of all sorts of poems. It has poems about animals, the past, nature, etc. There was a poem about geese and how the weather was changing and how they were flying south.

I thought this book of poems was great. I enjoyed most of them.

I would use this book in my classroom, depending on what my unit was Iwould read aloud which ever poem fit into the unit. ( )

I don't read much poetry, but when this one came through I thought the illustrations were beautiful. The kids are enjoying the poetry while we're in between chapter books.