One Big Rain

Gr 3-6 This collection artfully evokes the types of precipitation throughout the seasons. Twenty poems trace the yearly cycle through the leaf-clearing rains of autumn, the forceful squalls of winter, spring's gentle promise, and welcome summer showers. There's a poem by Robert Frost ("To the Thawing Wind") and one by Carl Sandburg ("Summer Grass"), along with selections by Eve Merriam, Richard Lewis, and Issa's delightful "a bush warbler.../muddy feet wiped/on the plum blossoms." The short poems are distinctive and well chosen, as in Lilian Moore's "Weather Report," which imagines a wintry crystalline orchard. The delightful oil-on-paper illustrations in muted colors wrap around the text and add whimsical details such as sparrows in knitted caps and scarves. This attractive collection offers a delightful introduction to nature poetry.-"Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA" Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc.

Illustrated with an appropriate palette of grays, blues, and olive greens, this anthology of twenty poems quietly celebrates rain. On the whole, the poems favor imagery over bouncy rhyme, with the pictures adding just enough snap to keep things from becoming too sleepy. The book design is invitingly small, and the poems' placement on the pages is clean and eye-pleasing.