Tomie dePaola's Book of Poems

Like Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose , this most recent addition to the dePaola anthologies is thoughtfully compiled and organized. The opening poem, ``There is no frigate like a book'' by Emily Dickinson, prepares the way for the entries that follow, which take readers from the beginning of the day to the end, and all around the world. The first poems are morning poems such as ``The Way to Start a Day'' by Byrd Baylor and ``Time to Rise'' by Robert Louis Stevenson; these are followed by more general poems such as ``Bananas and Cream'' by David McCord and ``Mother to Son'' by Langston Hughes; at the end of the volume are evening or ending poems, which include ``Cat in Moonlight'' by Douglas Gibson, ``Autumn Leaves'' by Aileen Fisher and ``Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening'' by Robert Frost. While dePaola's characteristic illustrations are beautifully executed, this collection lacks the luminescent quality so pervasive in both his earlier Favorite Nursery Tales and Christmas Carols . The theme of a day's passing doesn't prove, at least in this book, to be as compelling a basis on which to build a collection of poems. All ages. (Oct.)