National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry: More Than 200 Poems with Photographs That Float, Zoom, and Bloom!

In a superb companion to Lewis’s 2012 animal-themed collection, poems from writers both classic (Dickinson, Millay, Yeats) and contemporary (Grimes, Sidman, Yolen) pair with breathtaking nature photography that celebrates the variety of life on Earth and some one-of-a-kind landscapes. Most of the images evoke wonder and splendor, though a harrowing picture of the 2011 tsunami in Japan accompanies three poems (“it rushes with something/ to tell the shore/ But by the time it arrives/ it can only roar,” writes JonArno Lawson). Jack Prelutsky’s “The Ways of Living Things,” appearing beside a bald eagle about to take flight, sums up the collection succinctly: “In a fish’s joyful splashing,/ in a snake that makes no sound,/ in the smallest salamander/ there is wonder to be found.” Few books make it clearer why nature inspires so many poets to reach for the pen. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)