The Brook

It's unfair--and too easy--to criticize an artist for failing Tennyson, but the fact remains that ALA Notable author/illustrator Micucci (The Life and Times of the Apple, 1992, etc.) doesn't seem even to try to rise to the occasion. Tennyson's brook is a living thing, hurrying down 30 hills, bickering across valleys, stealing by lawns and grassy plots, and making ``netted sunbeam dance against...sandy shallows.'' It is as rambunctious as the ``lusty trout'' it carries. But in this version, Tennyson's brook is so quaint and butterfly-ridden that we can barely even see it, let alone celebrate it. A bawdy and capricious flirt of a river, the one the poet claimed would ``go on forever'' while men came and went, has been tamed by a Hallmark Card hand. (Glossary) (Poetry/Picture book. 4- 7) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 3-5-Micucci's naturalistic watercolors illumine selections from Tennyson's much longer poem, "The Brook." The work deals with the passing of people over time and the replacing of generations. Micucci has sketched the same theme in his illustrations-a girl grows up, marries, and has children of her own while seasons and the stream continue their annual pattern. Each double-page spread sets events on the water's banks in a definite season based on a careful reading of the text; the insects and plants ("And many a fairy foreland set/ With willow-weed and mallow), the activities of the people, and the sort of light that happens in spring or fall are carefully depicted. Tennyson's poetic vision is well served in this lyrical book.
Kathleen Whalin, Greenwich Country Day School, CT
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.