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©Carolyn Gabb

Category:       Poetry/anthology-single author
(written by a college student of Dr. Gabb's)

Book title:    A Moon in Your Lunchbox
Author:        Michael Spooner
Illustrator:     Ib Ohlsson
Publisher:     Henry Holt
Date:          1995
ISBN#         080035451

A small book, only 7-1/2" x 6"... and not many pages which probably would
attract more children who generally dislike "fat" books. A dark blue cover
with children examining an empty lunchbox drew me in, and I was not
disappointed from the first page to the last.

After being caught by the bright cover, I was surprised to see the grayish,
pencil-line drawings which punctuate the book, usually only one image to a
page. However, I must remind possible readers that Spooner's utilization
of concrete poetry forms an entirely different set of illustrations..as in
his "Fly South":

         L            s        s

         e    a   s   i        i

         t    l    i   d   b   d

        's    l    t   e   y   e
 
 

Concrete poetry shows up occasionally in collections, but I was pleased to
see so much creativity in Spooner's use of typography.

Poems in this collection rhymed:

"Sleepishly, snoozily
snug into bed
I'm dragging the blankets
up over my head."
 

Poems, in this collection, raised my senses:

"...where the silence of snow is thick,
and where great white drifts
drop into curves and hollows
round the bases of trees."
 

Words played acros pages -- in metaphor (moon/giant butter cookie),
in simile (pop like a runaway balloon), in onomatopoeia (banana that is
smashed/smushed/mashed). But most of all, this collection sparkles of the
magic that poetry can bring. He says it all when he says, in

"Small Miracles":

"I brought a poem my friend has written
so we could see the lazy dance of words,

the play of rhymes like sunbeams
on the page; the flight of thoughts like birds.

Here, tell me what you see."
 

The moon shines throughout many of the poems -- in a lunch box, growing
larger and smaller, rising and setting. I return to this bright star of a
small book time and time again, and hope you will discover it yourself some
day.