Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
Illustrated by Rick Allen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. ISBN: 9780547152288. Ages 6-12
*Newbery Honor Award
Come feel the cool and shadowed breeze,
come smell your way among the trees,
come touch rough bark and leathered leaves:
Welcome to the night.
Welcome to the night, where mice stir and furry moths flutter. Where snails spiral into shells as orb spiders circle in silk. Where the roots of oak trees recover and repair from their time in the light. Where the porcupette eats delicacies—raspberry leaves!—and coos and sings. Dive to the cool, dark air with this Newbery Honor-winning book that combines both the science and the poetry of nighttime.
Newbery Honor Book
Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book
Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor Book
Horn Book Fanfare
“In Sidman's delicious poems, darkness is the norm, and there's nothing to fear but the rising sun.”
*Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
“This picture book combines lyrical poetry and compelling art with science concepts.”
*Booklist (starred review)
“Sidman has elegantly crafted twelve poems rich in content and varied in format. Companion prose pieces . . . are as tuneful and graceful as the poems. This collection is ‘a feast of sound and spark.’”
*Newbery Award Committee