FROM THE PUBLISHER

This new collection by Valerie Worth, conceived before her death, is sure to delight readers who know her celebrated Small Poems books, and will serve as a wonderful introduction for those first encountering her enchanting free verse. Accompanied by Natalie Babbitt's fine pencil drawings, "Peacock" is joined by twenty-six other elegant poems by Worth about things as various as pandas and steam engines and icicles.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This collection of 27 poems by the late Worth (1933-94) once again heralds the joy of words, the way they feel in the mouth, the way they look on the page. "Ice Cream" makes the perfect example: "Melting, it Softly fills The mouth With something Like the velvet Word vanilla." Re-imagining everyday encounters, she urges readers to consider each and take pleasure in the entire sensory experience. "October" captures the month's role as a threshold to the wintry days ahead: "Frost a Presence in The woods: A sound Of footfalls, One here, One there, As the leaves Step down." The titular poem becomes a wry caution against vanity, "He fans Out that Famous halo, Turns it About for All to see, Folds it Down and Saunters away, Trailing his Heavy burden Of beauty. (Meanwhile, His freckled Brown wife Rambles around Him, plain And free.)" Babbitt (paired with Worth for Poems and More Small Poems) characterizes the feathered duo with sketches that play up the male's upright posture, head cocked, one foot aloft, while the female examines the ground for food, toes firmly planted. Worth knows just how to pace a collection, tethering loftier subjects to earthbound images near and dear to her readers' passions, such as in "Crayons": "Their paper Torn, their Snapped sticks Worn down To grubby Stubs, they Still shed The colors of The rainbow." This poet will be missed. All ages. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-6-Readers who have been charmed by Worth's "small poems" (All the Small Poems and Fourteen More [Farrar, 1996], etc.) will be pleased to find that she conceived of another collection before her death. Her characteristic free verse, with short lines and spare, rhythmic language, describes animals and objects from icicles to umbrellas, onions to ice cream. Whether it's the "Snapped sticks Worn down To grubby Stubs-" in "crayons" or a "fish" "-looking Up from its tray Of snow with A dolorous eye," the images and moods conveyed through word and sound will captivate readers and encourage them to focus their own imaginative eyes. Babbitt's black-and-white spot drawings face each poem with quiet detail that draws readers into the words. There is a lot of short, descriptive free verse available for this audience these days, but Worth's is a cut above-it's accessible, but fresh and surprising, and clearly attuned to language. Her work gives children something to admire and aim for. Three poems here have appeared previously in anthologies, but the others are mostly new treasures. Browsing through this slim book, readers may feel that they've indeed fanned open a peacock's tail.-Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Readers who cherish All the Small Poems, and Fourteen More (1994) will welcome this posthumous gathering of 26 more, all but three previously unpublished. In free verse lines seldom longer than three or four words, Worth writes, mostly, about common things: a pencil, a panda, an old dog, blue jeans "slowly / Ripening into / A friendliness, / A homely / Familiar / skin." Fond of metaphor she may be, but her imagery is as easy to comprehend as her simple language, her uncomplicated personal reactions, and such observations as, in the wry title poem, the fact that the peacock may be grand, but "his freckled / Brown wife / Rambles around / Him, plain, / And free." Babbitt's small, exactly detailed vignettes seem to float alongside these concise, child-friendly, often (seemingly) artless poems, reinforcing their gnomic elegance. (Poetry. 7-10)