The Island
by Lillian Morrison
Wrinkled stone
like an elephant’s skin
on which young birches are treading.
This teeny poem is just one in a joyous new collection called Firefly July.
It’s a delicious anthology of just the skimpiest of poems that flutter and ramble and glide their way through the four seasons.
Poems filled with moonlight and autumn breezes, a red wheelbarrow and an orange cat, jam-packed subways and quiet snowy meadows, trip along ever so lightly, each one just a few brief lines long.
The ever-so-talented Melissa Sweet has worked her magic once again in these playful, color-saturated, 
mixed media collages. Oh, the colors!! Hot tangerine and electric fuchsia pop on one page, while lemon chiffon and spring green, velvet black and starlight purple, icy blue and cardinal red burst from others. It’s a party on every page! Absorbing, beautiful, sophisticated, and childlike, all at the same time.
This would make a splendid source of poems to share with preschoolers, yet its seriously-talented roster of poets, from Emily Dickinson to Carl Sandburg to Joyce Sidman, guarantees that all age groups will meet with beauty of language and thought here.
Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems
selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
published in 2014 by Candlewick Press
47 pages
orange marmalade 
How great to read an enthusiastic and expressive response to to book illustrations, for a change. So many reviews give a three word passing remark about the illustrations in picture books, and they are such an integral part.
‘Hot tangerine and electric fuchsia pop on one page, while lemon chiffon and spring green, velvet black and starlight purple, icy blue and cardinal red burst from others.’
Wow!
Hi Judy. I just stopped by your blog as well. Love your work! I wish more Aussie kids lit made it over to us.
Thanks 🙂