A family favorite

Whenever I am home from college, I read poems to my little siblings at bedtime. Unless I am using my worn copies of Homer, Yeats or Hopkins, I always use just one book:


A Family of Poems, edited by Caroline Kennedy

It is wonderful. The well-chosen selection of poems is neatly divided into sections like "Adventure," "That's So Silly," "Seashore," "About Me" and "Bedtime." The book is filled with gorgeous watercolor illustrations that make the book a delight to look at, especially for little ones who can't read yet.

Angela is getting to be quite the reader and she has a new favorite poem: The Emperor of Ice Cream. I'm not sure why- it's a really weird poem- but I think it's because it has a big picture of an ice cream cone. Tonight she asked me to read it, but when I opened to the page, she noticed something and began to frown.

"This poem has a bad word," she said.

"It does?"

"Yes," she said, leaning in close. "It says dumb."

That made me laugh. Here's to the days when "dumb" was a "really bad word!"

I really enjoyed the conference, by the way- posts on that to come soon.