What’s great about Joyce Sidman’s DARK EMPEROR AND OTHER POEMS OF THE NIGHT, is that each poem has a totally unique voice and form, as each “narrator” from the fleeing mouse in “Dark Emperor” to the industrious spider in “Night-Spider’s Advice” tells their evening tale. The factual information on every facing page is an added bonus. And the illustrations beautifully capture the creatures in their habitats. My big kid particularly likes the title poem, “Dark Emperor” and has read it aloud many, many times. Though she declined to pen a review of the book, she dubbed it “a little scary and interesting.”
Indeed.
DARK EMPEROR won a Newbery honor this year and the illustrations are Caldecott-calibre. It’s available in hardcover and also as a NOOKbook.
Tracey Baptiste 