Emily [Hardcover]

Michael Bedard (Author), Barbara Cooney (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

A young girl who lives across the street from the reclusive Emily Dickinson gets her chance to meet the poet when her mother is invited to play the piano for Emily. The girl sneaks up to Emily's room and exchanges a small gift for an authentic poem, which is included in the book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This fictionalized encounter between Emily Dickinson and a young neighbor is, like a Dickinson sonnet, a quiet gem: unassuming upon first glance, it is in fact deeply lustrous, with new facets becoming apparent the longer one looks. The narrator and protagonist is a child who has just moved into the house across the street from "the Myth." She accompanies her mother to Emily's house one day, where she makes her a gift of lily bulbs and receives a poem in return. Bedard's unnamed narrator speaks with the piercing clarity and insight particular to sensitive children. As she contemplates her fear of meeting the reclusive poet, she realizes that "perhaps the lady in the yellow house is also afraid"; she intuitively responds to the hidden life mysteriously contained in the dull, dead bulbs; and she makes a simple but profound connection--"Maybe people are a mystery, too"--that allows her to reach out to her strange, largely hidden neighbor. While, laudably, the story in no way depends upon familiarity with Dickinson's life or work, the fullness of Bedard's accomplishment is most clearly evident in relation to the latter. He uses diction and imagery that might have been the poet's own: strong, sure language whose force derives from its very economy; small but potent details from nature and domesticity. Judiciously employing alliteration, rhyme, assonance and echoes--"Like flakes of flowers the words fell to the sheets. I listened to them fall and fell asleep"--his prose moves with the rhythms and lyricism of poetry, yet retains a child's straightforward, unselfconscious voice throughout. Caldecott Medalist Cooney's oils richly capture the story's subtly shifting moods, from the utter stillness of a street bathed in moonlight and swaddled in snow to the vigor of a sun-flooded room full of growing plants. They visually extend the text's Dickinsonian personification of nature ("There was no one there but winter, all in white") and contain skillful echoes of their own: at different points in the story the child and poet are shown sitting alone on the landings of their respective houses, a visual reinforcing of their special kinship. And in their tranquil beauty these paintings testify to the mysteries and wonders of even the everyday. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5-- A young girl whose family has just moved into the neighborhood describes her first encounter with the inhabitant of the yellow house across the road. Called ``the Myth'' by some, deemed crazy by others, she is, in fact, the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson. An air of mystery surrounds the woman as the child overhears her parents discussing their neighbor. When the girl's mother is invited to the yellow house to play the piano, curiosity deepens. The first meeting and special gifts exchanged between the girl and the poet are described in this imaginative and unusual picture book. In keeping with a story about a poet, the language of the text is lyrical. The effect, however, is to make the young narrator seem much older than Cooney's wonderful oil paintings suggest. The illustrations convey a sense of place and time long ago, from drawing rooms to clothing. This is a picture book to read aloud and share with older children, both because of the sophisticated language and the nature of the story. For what are youngsters who have never heard of Emily Dickinson to make of her eccentricities? Those who are beginning to encounter her poetry will find that Bedard's charming story demystifies the person and offers some understanding of her odd behavior. --Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers; 1St Edition edition (March 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385306970
• ISBN-13: 978-0385306973
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 0.5 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #93 in Books > Children's Books > Biographies > United States

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching Story that also Teaches, August 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Emily (Hardcover)

The story of Emily Dickinson is a wonderful way to introduce students to a great poet in a poet profile lesson. Beautifully illustrated and told simply, yet powerfully, this is one book that will enlighten children to think not only about the poet, but also about the relationships, or friendships that children may have with a special adult (i.e., teacher or grandparent )An excellent gift for children and adults.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glimpse of Emily....., April 15, 2002

By 

Roz Levine - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emily (Hardcover)

"There is a woman on our street they call the Myth. She lives with her sister in the yellow house across the road. Her room is the one up on the left at the front. If you stand on tiptoe, you can see it peeping over the high hedge as you pass. She hasn't left her house in nearly twenty years. If strangers come to call, she runs and hides herself away. Some people say she's crazy. But to me she's Emily..." When our young narrator's mother is invited to cross the street and play the piano for the elusive Emily, the little girl can't wait to accompany her. Emily is nowhere to be seen, but Mother sits and nervously begins to play. "When Mother stopped she turned to me. A sound of clapping rippled down the stairs, and then a small voice like a little girl's. "Dear friend, you put the robin's song to shame. Play more. Already I can feel the spring." As her mother continues, the little girl creeps up the winding stairs to investigate, and at the bend at the top, finds a small woman dressed in white, sitting and listening to the beautiful music from below. From her pocket, our narrator takes out two lily bulbs. "I brought you some spring...If you plant them they will turn to lilies." Quickly Emily dashed off some words on a scrap of paper and handed it to her guest. "Hide this away, as I will hide your gift to me. Perhaps in time they both will bloom." And so as spring arrived, so did the lilies, and a young girl's special poem from Emily Dickinson..... Michael Bedard has captured the quiet and intriguing reclusive nature of Emily Dickinson in his well researched historical story. "In writing this book, I went to Amherst to visit the house where she lived. I sat in the parlor with the piano, visited the room where she wrote. I stood beneath her window and she lowered this story to me." His simple, eloquent, and engaging text transports the reader back in time to nineteenth century Amherst, Massachusetts, to spend an afternoon with Emily Dickinson. You can almost hear the piano drifting up the stairs, and the scratches of her pen as Emily dashes off a poem. Barbara Cooney's beautifully evocative oil paintings are rich in period detail, and complement the text with their quiet settings. With an Afterword to complete and enhance the story, Emily is truly a masterpiece of word and art, and a fascinating story that shouldn't be missed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A charming vignette, June 2, 2001

By 

J. Mack "reviewer2" (Pacific, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Emily (Hardcover)

This short glimpse of Emily Dickenson, through the eyes of a neighbor child, is kind, gentle and quietly poetic. My daughter, almost seven, gives it a thumbs up. I like it because it tells a nice story of human interaction, allowing for discussion of how people can be different and yet wonderful. It's pictorial illustrations lend detail to the story, and draw the young reader in. What poetry is exactly is a central theme. A nice book to read to a child, or for an older child to read alone.