Enormous Smallness: A Story of E.E. Cummings

Burgess’s first picture book introduces readers to E.E. Cummings, exploring his development as a poet from the verse he dictated to his mother as a child through to his adulthood. Befitting the subject, Burgess experiments with language, punctuation, and form: “He wanted his reader’s eyes to be on tiptoes too, seeing and reading poetry (inaway) that was new.” Di Giacomo’s capricious collages create a lively interplay between pictures and words, and visual motifs such as birds and elephants intermingle with samples of Cummings’s work. Burgess delivers a thorough and lovingly crafted homage to a writer whose poems “were alive with experimentation and surprise!” Ages 4–8. (Apr.)