John Updike’s A CHILD’S CALENDAR- Very Good Poetry for Young Children
Just over a week ago I was with the family at the bookstore. The kids were looking at books that interested them and I was browsing in the kid’s poetry section. There I found John Updike’s A Child’s Calendar, and perfectly illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Until then I hadn’t any idea that John Updike had written anything for children. I opened it and began reading, and after half-way through the first poem decided I had to have this book. You should have it, too.
The poems are simple rhymes perfectly suited for children, one for every month. Each captures the essence of that month in the way a child sees it, experiences it, and remembers it. Each poem in turn develops and carries forward the rhythm of the year as it opens and closes and opens again. And each awakens in you your own memories.
But Updike’s words are so well chosen, the poems also become exercises in seeing the world in a way more beautiful that we remember it. For example, that night I read the first poem, January, to my 5-year old. The fourth stanza is
The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees’ black lace.
And we talked about the image of “The trees’ black lace”. What was the trees’ black lace, why use that description? If we closed our eyes could we see it? We enjoyed our little discussion. She has since asked for this book several times and enjoys the poetry even more than I had imagined she would.
The illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman could hardly be more suited, and the Caldecott honor that this book received was very well deserved. She focuses on the children of one family, their pets, friends, parents and neighbors, bringing more life to the poems, serving as a foil, not to stricly illustrate the poems, but to help children reading or listening to understand the poem’s metaphors.
As much as I enjoyed this book of poems, I noticed a bit of sadness growing inside, and then I realized it was nostalgia. I saw that these poems weren’t the chronicle of the year that my children or their friends grow through. The holidays are all there, but their lives are so crammed with stuff. They aren’t drawn by the seasons out into nature or into the neighborhood like I was as a child.
I looked to find the date the book was published. First published in 1965, it’s about a world that doesn’t much exist anymore. That’s when I was a kid. Now, kids are drawn indoors by the television and children’s programming that impoverishes them while making writers, producers and actors rich. They carry home heavy backpacks bursting with homework that they complete in moments stolen between dance class and swim and a full night’s sleep.
This is the poem for June.
The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,And long green weeks
That never end.
School’s out. The time
Is ours to spend.There’s Little League,
Hopscotch, the creek,
And, after supper,
Hide-and-seek.The live-long light
Is like a dream,
and freckles come
Like flies to cream.
A CHILD’S CALENDAR
by John Updike
Trina Schart Hyman, Illustrator
Paperback | 32 pages | | US$ 6.95 | ISBN: 9780823417667
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