Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems [Hardcover]

Everything that happens when you go camping can be an adventure, from getting dressed inside your sleeping bag on a chilly morning to meeting a moose to sharing secrets in a tent at night. Kristine O’Connell George turns the memorable moments of a family outing into spirited, evocative verse, and Kate Kiesler’s vivid paintings provide a cast of characters and the perfect setting. The captivating poems and pictures in Toasting Marshmallows will leave readers with wonderful memories of a camping trip—even if they’ve never been on one!

George deftly describes the satisfying sequence of familiar events in a summer camping experience in this collection of 30 related poems perfectly paired once again with Kiesler's inviting oil paintings (The Great Frog Race and Other Poems, 1998 etc.) The daily rhythms of a camping trip are presented from the Tent to exploring an Abandoned Cabin to observing A Doe. Shared common experiences include Sleeping Bag': It's so cold outside. I'm getting dressed inside/my sleeping bag. I wriggle, scootch, scrunch, and jiggle. Flop/Front flips, back flips—I'm a caterpillar/in a cozy cloth cocoon/that zips. Short pieces like Mosquito Song demonstrate pointed wordplay with a witty use of alliteration and onomatopeia. It's Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!/Mosqueeeeeeeeeto!/Is that you, Dinner?/Greeeeeeeeetings. Kiesler expresses the changing vistas of the countryside from the uneasy, dark palette of the double-page spread for Storm to the bright, sunshiny view of a field for Wild Mustard. The changing layout of each page gives a sense of surprise to the most ordinary of events, the words of the concrete poem, Eavesdropping, Tipping/a slender/silver ear placed in the shape of a cresent moon, the stanzas of Flashlight positioned in the beams of light to name just a few. Altogether an engaging trip.