An Old Shell: Poems of the Galapagos - Hardcover

Tony Johnston is the author of numerous children's books, including Big Foot Cinderrrrrella. She lives in San Marino, California.

Tom Pohrt is the author/illustrator of, most recently, Having a Wonderful Time. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In this book of 34 poems, Johnston (The Magic Maguey) records her observations during a trip to the Gal pagos, which in a note she characterizes as a place "wild and vast and stark, looking out over the endless and shining skin of the sea." However striking some individual poems may be, the collection as a whole does not re-create the poet's awe. Sometimes Johnston's images are rich and evocative, as in the closing "Gal pagos": "Hold this place/ gently/ like an old shell./ Hold it/ to your ear./ Hear the song that sings/ insideA/ splash of fish/ flutter of finch/ rustle of salt/ wind/ lava hissing/ in wet sand/ and the echo of loneliness/ wild and wide." She sees with the eyes of an environmentalist who treasures each creature: a beetle is "one perfect polished pebble/ feeling its way along the rim/ of morning." Clouds "drift/ on their dark still wings./ Silver beaks/ of rain/ come softly pecking/ at the cliff." But the same phrases and subjects repeatAthings old, dark, cold, silver and soaring make regular appearancesAand there is little rhythm in the sequencing of the poems and little variety. Pohrt's (Coyote Goes Walking) spare, straightforward sepia illustrations seem like studies taken from a sailor's sketchbook, quick impressions of island life. His loose drawings offer an understated contrast to the lofty language about "the core of the mystery and poetry of Nature." Ages 7-up. (Oct.)
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