Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets

Gr 4—9—Many well-established poets are featured in this collection, including Rita Dove, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Frost. Because the selected poems are diverse in format, length, style, and content, there is something for all tastes, and children will enjoy leafing through them. The design of this book emulates that of a flip notebook, which allows readers to tear out a poem and carry it around to enjoy and share throughout the day. Although this is a creative and innovative idea, librarians might want to caution students against ripping out pages from a library copy. In addition, the book has no real sense of organization. There is no table of contents or author/subject index, so searching for a favorite poem or writer would be time-consuming. The poems themselves are loosely grouped by subject (chapter headings are vague and echo lines in the poems, e.g., "Where You Never Were" and "There Is Rain in Me"). Ultimately, this book would be most useful for reading aloud or for casual browsing.—Rita Meade, Brooklyn Public Library, NY