It took about eight months to track down the jump rope and ball bouncing and counting out rhymes for this picture book. Some I found in books and some I got from my husband’s international students and colleagues. I wanted the rhymes in both English and in their original or transliterated voices.
Bird Watch
Because we are a family of bird watchers, and because I have many opportunities to see my husband David (the original Pa from OWL MOON) interact with birds, children, and other birders, this book of poems came about. Some are celebratory, some are sad, some are observations. One poem
Dinosaur Dances
When they were little, my boys both loved dinosaurs so much, I embroidered dinosaur pillows for them. (I am NOT good at needlework.) When they were teenagers, I wrote this book. Go figure! The poems range from a dinosaur rock-and-roll band to a dinosaur waltz to a dinosaur square dance.
Three Bears Rhyme Book, The
When I first saw Jane Dyer’s wonderful artwork–in a portfolio at a workshop I was running–I fell in love with her animals in clothing. I wrote “Piggins” esepcially for her, but I always remembered a picture from her portfolio of the three bears eating breakfast. When I started writing the
Ring of Earth
Four linked poems about the seasons from the point of view of four different animals: winter is the weasel, who wears the season on his hide; spring is the spring peeper, a frog who believes he causes the season to appear by singing; summer is the dragonfly with wings like stained glass;
Whitethorn Wood and Other Magicks, The
Published by Charles deLint’s small press for the World Fantasy Convention when I was guest of honor, this little bit of ephemera has an introduction by John Crowley and an afterword by deLint, the title story, a silly folktale “The Bull and the Crowth” and three poems. There were 250 signed copies and 26 copies lettered A-Z and several Publisher’s Proofs. Very collectible.
Best Witches
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. In this collection of poems I got to write a bunch of strange, funny, and sentimental Halloween poems. I even got to use one I had written way back in college (the ivy climbing the wall poem.) The editor told me that Elise Primavera
Dragon Night and Other Lullabies
A collection of night-time poems, with lovely ink drawings by Demi, this book went out of print almost as soon as it was published because Methuen in the USA went out of business with that list. However, the book was published in England as well. And most of the poems have seen multiple
How Beastly!
This is a book of nonsense poems, about made up animals. Like the Shirk–a lazy shark. Or the Dinosore whose pounding poundage makes him weak. I wrote many of these on walks by the Connecticut River, telling the poems into my little tape recorder. As I am an incorrigible punster, I had a ball