My Uncle Emily
This picture book in free verse centers around Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant.” Yolen bases her story on true events in the life of the reclusive poet, who doted on her nephews next door in Amherst, Massachusetts, and joked that they should call her “Uncle.” Gilbert, six, describes how Uncle Emily gives him a dead bee and a poem to take to his teacher. After the teacher reads the poem to the class, no one understands it, and in the schoolyard, Gil fights a bully for calling Uncle a name. At home, the wounded Gil doesn’t fully explain why he is limping, but Uncle Emily helps him find a way to tell the tale, “so it comes around to the truth at last.” Carpenter’s clear, digitally touched pen-and-ink pictures show the classroom and playground drama, and then the warm, close family, all in period detail. After listening to the story, kids may want to hear the poem, printed in full at the back, and to talk about what it means. Grades K-3. --Hazel Rochman