Wong, Janet S. 2000. Night Garden Poems from the World of Dreams. Ill. by Julie Paschkis. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 0689826176
The Poetry
poetry about dreams ... eerie, beautiful, strange, creepy dreams
The Plot
This book is a collection of poems about dreams. Some dreams are peaceful, some are scary, but they're all beautiful in their own way.
The Theme
dreams
The Style
Night Garden is a book of dream poetry. The poems are written in free verse, some rhyme, some don't, but they follow the rules of dreams... There are no rules!
dreams
The Style
Night Garden is a book of dream poetry. The poems are written in free verse, some rhyme, some don't, but they follow the rules of dreams... There are no rules!
The Analysis
This book of poetry is illustrated in gouache on paper. The illustrations are dreamy with pictures swirling all around the poems. Each poem has a fully colored illustration to accompany it as well, but the pages are completely filled with illustrations of a single color. The poems are dreams, not about dreams. My favorite poem from the book is Nightmare. "You're afraid / that the things / you see / on TV, / those scary things, / super scary when true, / will sneak into the back of your mind, / will follow you, / will follow you, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / and in the quiet of the night / those things will spring into your dreams, / giving you a frightful scare-- / a news-at-seven true nightmare." Something about the repeating lines really struck me as creepy. The illustration accompanying that poem is also scary - someone crawling out of a flaming TV holding an ax with long, scary fingernails... Eeek!
This book of poetry is illustrated in gouache on paper. The illustrations are dreamy with pictures swirling all around the poems. Each poem has a fully colored illustration to accompany it as well, but the pages are completely filled with illustrations of a single color. The poems are dreams, not about dreams. My favorite poem from the book is Nightmare. "You're afraid / that the things / you see / on TV, / those scary things, / super scary when true, / will sneak into the back of your mind, / will follow you, / will follow you, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / and in the quiet of the night / those things will spring into your dreams, / giving you a frightful scare-- / a news-at-seven true nightmare." Something about the repeating lines really struck me as creepy. The illustration accompanying that poem is also scary - someone crawling out of a flaming TV holding an ax with long, scary fingernails... Eeek!
The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The only poem's illustration that really has any cultural markers is the poem Turnip Cake. The background illustrations show many paper lanterns and dragons and animals eating with chopsticks. The main illustration accompanying the poem shows a person with black hair and pale skin and what appears to be a silk dressing gown floating around a steaming dish. There also appears to be a rice steamer in the main illustration as well.
Text: As with the illustrations, the only poem that really has any Asian cultural markers in it is Turnip Cake. Nearly the entire poem is made up of descriptions of delicious food that you might find at your favorite Chinese or other Asian style restaurant. "...orange shrimp / and red sausage," "this lo bak go like no other, / this dim sum of my dreams".
The Review
Fern Kory (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, January 2000 (Vol. 53, No. 5))
These fifteen poems explore the psychic deeps where “a tangle of roots/ sends up/ green shoots/ and dreams grow/ wild.” The unselfconsciously multicultural cast of dreamers depicted in the striking gouache on paper illustrations provide diverse voices for poems about the terrible reality of a “news-at-seven true nightmare,” the fluid fantasy of “swimming free,/ water washing/ over me,/ seeing clear/ through eyes like glass,” and the more down-to-earth dreams of the child who doesn’t want to fly but instead likes “to go to sleep at nine/ curled up round/ in my safe bed,/ dreaming soft and fuzzy/ things.” The combination of the impressionistic and the prosaic in these vivid poems invites rereading just as the fabulous images of the illustrations and the dreamy monochromatic backgrounds invite re-viewing. Even wide-awake readers will find something they can relate to in this collection.
Illustrations: The only poem's illustration that really has any cultural markers is the poem Turnip Cake. The background illustrations show many paper lanterns and dragons and animals eating with chopsticks. The main illustration accompanying the poem shows a person with black hair and pale skin and what appears to be a silk dressing gown floating around a steaming dish. There also appears to be a rice steamer in the main illustration as well.
Text: As with the illustrations, the only poem that really has any Asian cultural markers in it is Turnip Cake. Nearly the entire poem is made up of descriptions of delicious food that you might find at your favorite Chinese or other Asian style restaurant. "...orange shrimp / and red sausage," "this lo bak go like no other, / this dim sum of my dreams".
The Review
Fern Kory (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, January 2000 (Vol. 53, No. 5))
These fifteen poems explore the psychic deeps where “a tangle of roots/ sends up/ green shoots/ and dreams grow/ wild.” The unselfconsciously multicultural cast of dreamers depicted in the striking gouache on paper illustrations provide diverse voices for poems about the terrible reality of a “news-at-seven true nightmare,” the fluid fantasy of “swimming free,/ water washing/ over me,/ seeing clear/ through eyes like glass,” and the more down-to-earth dreams of the child who doesn’t want to fly but instead likes “to go to sleep at nine/ curled up round/ in my safe bed,/ dreaming soft and fuzzy/ things.” The combination of the impressionistic and the prosaic in these vivid poems invites rereading just as the fabulous images of the illustrations and the dreamy monochromatic backgrounds invite re-viewing. Even wide-awake readers will find something they can relate to in this collection.
The Connection
Since this book of poetry is about dreams, an interesting program would be to share these poems with kids, then have them interpret their dreams using a dream dictionary like Dream Dictionary: an A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind by Tony Crisp. We could then write poems and illustrate them, just like in the book.
Since this book of poetry is about dreams, an interesting program would be to share these poems with kids, then have them interpret their dreams using a dream dictionary like Dream Dictionary: an A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind by Tony Crisp. We could then write poems and illustrate them, just like in the book.
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