August 1 – 7, 2025Vol. 27, No. 8

Yummy Ice Cream Cone, Lick and Crunch

Cover of Words with Wings and Magic Things

by Martha F. Barkley

My delicious treat today was almond pistachio. Friends at the table near me each had a different flavor showing drippy colors of the rainbow.

I kept thinking of my new interlibrary loan book, Words with Wings and Magic Things by poet Matthew Burgess and illustrator Doug Salati. The exterior covers do reveal a tall ice cream cone on the back, but looking inside the paintings are grander and some even double page without a word or a poem.

Part of poet Burgess’s “Ice-Cream Dream” poem is:

Lemon meringue tickles the tongue and torte — you’re meant to savor it. I sometimes crave a chocolate bar but ice cream is my favorite. Tiramisu is lovely too and mousses have a sheen. Chocolate cake is truly great but I dream of ice cream.

The inside ice cream cone is much more exotic and grand compared to the back cover AND the entire “Ice-Cream Dream” poem is delicious, too. Go find this tantalizing book of poems that is written by an award winning writer of non-fiction and poetry. The pictures by Caldecott Medal and Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Award winner prove grandly imaginative.

“To reach the place of things unseen, words can be your trampoline.”

Part of “Hammock Song” Between two trees you swing and dream, a breeze flows through and you’re midstream. The trees will lift you to a place that’s to the left of time and space, where you can be a little boat, whose single wish is just to float…

Birch trees look like our Belgrade bowing and bending trunks around the Belgrades, holding up the hammock with a sleepy, smiling kid.

Find this gorgeously illustrated book of poems and a smile will appear on your face, too.

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