The Wishing Bone And Other Poems

Amusingly absurd and playfully profound, this delightfully illustrated volume of original poems is sure to tickle the fancy of children and adults alike.

It happened on a winter’s day
(The air was cold, the sky was gray):
Out walking in the woods alone,
I came upon a wishing bone.

What would you do if everything you wished came true? How does a white rhinoceros take his tea? Where can you find the elusive purple tiger? Who wanders in the whiffle bog on a bilgy, bulgy night? Resonating with childlike questions, the fanciful poems in THE WISHING BONE invite readers to think and to dream. Full of illustrations as fresh and whimsical as the verse, here is a collection to read aloud and savor for its sheer verbal and visual exuberance.

This delightfully illustrated volume of amusingly absurd and playfully profound original poems invites readers to read aloud and tickle their fancy.

Amusingly absurd and playfully profound, this delightfully illustrated volume of original poems is sure to tickle the fancy of children and adults alike.

It happened on a winter’s day
(The air was cold, the sky was gray):
Out walking in the woods alone,
I came upon a wishing bone.

What would you do if everything you wished came true? How does a white rhinoceros take his tea? Where can you find the elusive purple tiger? Who wanders in the whiffle bog on a bilgy, bulgy night? Resonating with childlike questions, the fanciful poems in THE WISHING BONE invite readers to think and to dream. Full of illustrations as fresh and whimsical as the verse, here is a collection to read aloud and savor for its sheer verbal and visual exuberance.

Publishers Weekly

Dressy packaging gives Mitchell's (The Nightingale) collection of nine nonsense poems an elegant look, but underneath the sophisticated wrapping, the rhymes strike a disappointing flat note. The book's appearance-elongated trim size, ornamented page numbers and varied layouts-raises expectations, as does Pohrt's accomplished artwork. Muted ink-and-watercolor illustrations counter the absurdities of the poems with a deadpan formality, similar to the juxtaposition in Pohrt's Having a Wonderful Time. The animal characters, especially for "The Trial," a lengthy rhyming commentary on a literal kangaroo court, are spot-on in their witty anthropomorphicisms. Readers will encounter instances of inspired wordplay, as in "The Answer," which clearly nods at the inimitable "Jabberwocky": "It was a bilgy, bulgy night/ Inside the whiffle bog./ The ling-langs howled, obstreperous;/ The owls, ambideperous,/ Fell both ways through the fog." However, such fresh snippets are isolated. For example, "The Answer" also includes the impenetrable lines "I asked him why, I asked him whence,/ I asked him whither-ho./ I asked him if my gravity/ Would lift inside the Cavity/ And where the greens would go." The meter is polished, but the language lacks joie de vivre. The unevenness proves particularly problematic, given the length of the poems; it is hard to appreciate the clever similes and ear-pleasing alliteration of lines such as "My tongue felt limp as liverwurst./ My mind was in a daze,/ As if it were a slice of bread/ Spread thick with mayonnaise" when they are buried in the unwieldy, 30-plus stanzas of "The Last of the Purple Tigers." A soiree of silliness more belabored than amusing. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Stephen Mitchell is a renowned writer, translator, and anthologist. His more than thirty books for adults and children include THE NIGHTINGALE (a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic story),
as well as translations of Rilke, Genesis, and the TAO TE CHING. This is his first collection of poems for children. Of the poems in THE WISHING BONE, he says,
"They’ll tell you all you need to hear,
They’ll whisper to your inner ear,
And sometimes they will make you laugh As if you saw a pink giraffe Tap-dancing with a tuna fish.
They make no bones: Their dearest wish Is that you like them. If you do,
Then (naturally) they’ll like you."

Tom Pohrt has illustrated many children’s books, including the best-selling CROW AND WEASEL by Barry Lopez. He is a self-taught artist. This is his first book with Candlewick Press.