Simple Poems

Some magic doesn't announce itself. It waits in a pebble on the sidewalk, a puddle after rain, a worm named Willie worrying about absolutely everything. It waits for someone to slow down long enough to notice.

Meet Markus, a boy who can't walk past an ordinary thing without stopping to admire it. Where you might see loose pebbles on a sidewalk, Markus sees a parade ... and when one falls behind, he simply helps it catch up. That's all it takes. One small kindness, and soon the whole village is watching pebbles march, because Markus noticed first, and noticing turns out to be contagious. He has a phrase he saves for only the most genuinely wonderful discoveries: "ReMARKable!"

Beside him is Neener, who spreads joy everywhere she goes without ever quite realizing she's doing it, and her enormous, endlessly patient cat, Zelda, who asks for nothing but company. Together they wander through a whimsical, illustrated world full of worried worms, runaway dictionaries, snack-food armies, imaginary rabbits who may not be so imaginary after all, and a boy whose Saturday disaster turns out to be exactly what the day needed.

Turn the page and you'll meet a girl who collects sad days as carefully as happy ones, a boy who can't stop singing at the most inconvenient moments, and a monster under the bed who isn't quite what you'd expect once you work up the nerve to look. Every poem in this collection treats the small, real dramas of childhood with the seriousness they actually deserve.

These poems don't explain their own magic. They don't stop to spell out a lesson. They simply notice something small, wonder about it a little, and trust the reader to feel the rest ... the way the best childhood moments always have.

Funny, gentle, and quietly wise, Simple Poems: Whimsy, Wonder and Other Important Things is for kids who ask a lot of "why," and for the grown-ups reading along beside them, who might just catch themselves looking a little closer at their own ordinary Tuesday.

Come look closer. Something ReMARKable is waiting.