Genre: Castles Old Stone Poems (Lewis, J. P. and Dotlich, R. K., 2006) i
Book Summary: Castles Old Stone Poems is a collection of poems about famous towers and castles, including The Castle in the Air from Viking legends, the Tower of London, and other famous castles and palaces.
Impressions: The poems are all nicely done, but some stand out a lot more than their fellows. The London Tower with its talks of executions, Bunratty Castle’s poem is more vivid in terms of the fights and blood spilt there, Himeji Castle’s walls built of Japanese ghost stories, images like that really set the best poems apart from the others.
Professional Review: From Booklist (2006)
Castles have a perennial allure for young people, and this illustrated poetry collection celebrates some of the most legendary, from England's Bodiam Castle and the Tower of London to Japan's Himeji Castle and California's Hearst Castle. Each spread focuses on a different location, and the words often reflect a contemporary viewer imagining long-ago life: "What splendor did the maid see / from that window long ago?" Lewis and Dotlich are frank about the bloodshed and terror that are part of the history, when "beheadings were as easy as breathing." Children may need help with some of the allusions ("Windows pierce the sky like hushed haiku," for example) and the historical context. Burr's paintings add immediacy and sense to the words in dramatic scenes of medieval courts and castles, and the extensive appended material includes a bibliography, time line, and background about each site. Suggest this for classroom exercises that show how poetry can help bring history into the present. Gillian Engberg
Library Uses: Some of the poems could be used in storytimes about knights and castles, or in programs to help kids or teens write their own poems. Given the more martial elements of the poems it could be a good way to make poems cool for boys too.
Readalikes: David Macauly’s Castle would be a great book to pair with this collection of poems, with its detailed and beautiful drawings adding context and life to the poems about castles. On a more poetic note, any of Shel Silverstein’s books of poems would be good books to recommend as well. It wouldn’t work for all readers, and some would need help from parents, but readers who enjoyed these poems could potentially highly enjoy Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s the Lady of Shalott.
References
Engberg, G. (2006). Castles: Old stone poems. The Booklist, 103(3), 51. Retrieved from https://libproxy.library.unt.edu/login?url=https://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2165/docview/235532088?accountid=7113
Lewis, J. P. and Dotlich, R. K. (2006). Castles Old Stone Poems. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong.
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