Poetry

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Singer, Marilyn. 1992. “In my tent”. Ill. By Emily Arnold McCully. New York:
Macmillian Publishing. ISBN 0027827011

PLOT SUMMARY

In a series of poems, Marilyn Singer tells of a little girl’s camping trip with her family. They load up the car and head for the woods where she has her own orange tent to sleep in. Se watches the golden firefly in the night, gets lost in the woods, with her mother, listens to ghost stories, observes a gang of raccoons, goes canoeing, and gets caught in a storm. Later in the year she visit her boxed tent in the cellar before going out to play in the winter snow.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This story of a family outing unfolds in a series of discrete episodes, with each vers libre poem enchantingly complemented by one of McCully’s rustic, almost impressionistic, paintings. The combination creates a joyous serenity in the mind of reader, inviting parents who share this book with their children to wax nostalgia about the days of their own youth. Young reader themselves will catch a glimpse of the simple pleasures still available to those who journey to the country an become involved with the nature. The total effect is to create a yearning for more; an unsatisfied desire that leads one to start over once having finished the trip. A fun book to visit again and again.


REVIEW EXCERPT
"A young girl experiences the pleasure of camping with her family -- canoeing, telling ghost stories by firelight, wading in the river, discovering a squirrel's nest -- in this evocative collection of verse. Impressionistic watercolors complement the poems." - Horn Book Magazine, 1992


5. CONNECTIONS

George, K. O., & Moser, B. (2004). Hummingbird nest: A journal of poems. Orlando: Harcourt. ISBN 9780152023256