Emily

by Michael Bedard

Book Overview

From Michael Bedard and two-time Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Barbara Cooney comes a story about American poet Emily Dickinson and the young girl who befriends her.What if your neighbor were... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385306970
• ISBN13: 9780385306973
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 10.8" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 3 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

Hauntingly Beautiful

I knew nothing about this book when I picked it up for my children. At first reading, I was concerned that it was a ghost story, which might be a little too scary for my three year old. I was delightfully surprised that it is more of a mystery, with a little girl (the narrator) discovering Emily Dickinson in the house across the street. Barbara Cooney's slightly primitive paintings are a wonderful accompaniament to Michael Bedard's text. But it is Emily's own poetry which is the climax of the book. This book would be an excellent accompaniament to any young person's study of Emily Dickinson's poetry.

Prose that will change the way a child hears

The beauty's in the telling, and even more in the not-telling: "The road was full of mud and mirrors..." Thanks, Michael Bedard, for not talking down to children, and for an explanation of poetry that any child or adult would be better for hearing. Gorgeous prose without the overblown cloying sentiment of so many children's books.

A Glimpse of Emily.....

"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.

Touching Story that also Teaches

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.

Excellent book....loved the illustrations

I had recently visited Emily Dickinson's Homestead in Amherst, Mass. and was very impressed with the tour and the amount of information and I thought this book did it justice in contents as well as in the beautiful illustrations by Barbara Cooney. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.