Years ago I kept in my classroom a well-thumbed, much-loved poetry book titled Upside Down and Inside Out: Poems for All Your Pockets by Bobbi Katz. Year after year my students read and re-read the book. We created our own "pocket poems," performing them during "author hour" and displaying them around the room. I was delighted to see, therefore, this new anthology Pocket Poems come across my desk.

Selected by Bobbi Katz, these "pocket-sized" poems are perfect for introducing children to the world of poetry. Katz has done a superb job: The selections are a delightful mixture of silly and serious, fun and fantastical, thoughtful and nonsensical.

Herein you will find the evocative poem "Autumn" by Emily Dickinson as well as a humorous rhyme about toothpaste on the loose. Too, readers will find "Twinkle, Twinkle" by Lewis Carroll as well as a funny four-liner, "Raising Frogs for Profit" by an anonymous rhymer.

There are fifty-three poems all together, many of them containing eight lines or less. The illustrations, some spot art and some full-page, are done in pen-and-ink and watercolor. Full of details, they capture perfectly the imagery of the text.

In the introductory poem to the book, Katz declares:

. . . You can misplace your homework.
You can lose your left shoe.
But that poem in your pocket will be a part of you.
And nothing can take it.
And nothing can break it.
That poem in your pocket
becomes
part of . . .
YOU!

In this age of wars and uncertainty, being able to hold an inspiring or witty or wise or wonderful verse in one's heart can be a comforting thing indeed.

Pocket Poems receives our highest recommendation: District-wide purchase strongly encouraged.

Reviewed by K.J. Wagner