Knock at a Star

Knock at a Star: A Child’s Introduction to Poetry

By Dorothy M. Kennedy & X.J. Kennedy

Illustrated by Karen Lee Baker

ISBN: 978-0-316-48800-6

Genre: Poetry

Curriculum Subjects: Songs/Poetry/NurseryRhymes

Grades: 5 & Up

 

Bursting with 75 new poems, this revised edition of a perennial favorite gives children who are learning to love poetry, those who already love it, and adults who want to show children the many things a poem can do, a reason to celebrate. First published more than fifteen years ago, Knock at a Star was a collection of poems that children would like rather than a collection of work that they should like. Now X.J. and Dorothy Kennedy have added new poems by such gifted writers as Jack Prelutsky, Barbara Esbensen, Mary Ann Hoberman and Judith Viorst as well as cutting several poems that no longer seem as fresh as they once did. The book retains the Kennedys’ words to those who teach poetry and their comments on the different sorts of poems they include. The result is an enormously appealing collection that should prove extraordinarily popular for the next fifteen years or more.

 

PRAISE & ACCOLADES

“Charming, delightful, witty, a treasure of a book – the superlatives come easily on inspection of this anthology.” – The Washington Post

 

“If any book can win young readers to poetry, this one can, for there’s not a poem in it that isn’t a chuckle, a scare, or an illumination.” – School Library Journal

 

“Fresh in both selection and presentation, this includes more than 150 poems, most of them uncommon to anthologies. There is in most of the poems a combination of brevity with depth of feeling or a twist of invention that takes the reader by surprise.” – Booklist

 

“The Kennedys have assembled a remarkably unassuming and accessible collection.” – Kirkus