Dark Emperor

& Other Poems of the Night
Written by Joyce Sidman
Illustrated by Rick Allen

Sidman, Joyce. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Illustrated by Rick Allen. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010.

ISBN 9780547152288

This book is a collection of twelve poems about nocturnal life in a forest written by Joyce Sidman. All the poems involve creatures, plants, and trees that come alive at night in a forest. While all the poems have a consistent theme, there doesn't seem to be a special sequence to the poems. This makes it easier to use a single poem without changing the integrity of the story. Readers will not experience too many emotions from this book. What they will receive is entertainment and knowledge through Sidman's poems and factual descriptions. There are a variety of poetic elements including figurative language, sounds, and shape. The last poem in the book, "Moon's Lament" is a medieval style of poetry called ubi sunt. This book will be good to use as a way to connect poetry and the science curriculum. This book has several honors and awards attached to it like being a Newberry Honor Book, a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Honor book, and a Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor, to name a few.

The layout of this book combined with the illustrations is amazingly unique and detailed. The book starts with a two page illustration of a forest at sunset with an owl flying and leaves blowing, and is wrapped up at the end with the same forest at sun rise. Rick Allen's illustrations were created by a special process called relief printing. This process is very intricate and timely using linoleum and/or wood, many carving tools, and for this book hand colored with gouache. Sidman provides the readers with a table of contents and a glossary of unfamiliar terms. Throughout the book, each poem has been given two pages. One page displays the poem and a small illustration, and the other page contains the large illustration for the poem and a note on the science facts that the illustrations and poems represent.

The poet, Joyce Sidman is a well-known poet in the writing world and this book definitely shows her writing style. This is the debut for Rick Allen, the illustrator, in the picture book genre. These two have really shown their talents together in this beautiful book.

One poem I would highlight from this book to use in a poetry break is "Oak After Dark". Without showing the students the title of the poem or the illustration in the book, give volunteer students each a stanza to read aloud to the class. The teacher will then read the poem again aloud as the students close their eyes and visualize the poem in their thoughts. This will lead to a class discussion about what the students were imagining from hearing the poem. Then tell the students the title and picture, and see how the students react. Did anyone guess or imagine an oak tree?

Oak After Dark

by Joyce Sidman

As nighttime rustles at my knee,

I stand in silent gravity

and quietly continue chores

of feeding leaves and sealing pores.

While beetles whisper in my bark,

while warblers roost in branches dark,

I stretch my roots into the hill

and slowly, slowly, drink my fill.

A thousand crickets scream my name,

yet I remain the same, the same.

I do not rest, I do not sleep,

and all my promises I keep:

to stand while all the seasons fly,

to anchor earth,

                      to touch the sky.