When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer (Golden Kite Honors)
Grade 2-4–Long has taken a portion of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and used it as a text for a picture-book story. His lush, realistic, single- and double-page paintings illuminate the tale of a boy who is taken to an academic lecture, becomes bored, and walks out alone to look at the night sky. Line drawings by Long's two sons accompany the text of the poem: "When I heard the learn'd astronomer;/When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;/When I was shown the charts and the diagrams,/to add, divide, and measure them…How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;/Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,/In the mystical moist night-air,/and from time to time,/Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." Whitman's words, like the pictured astronomy lecture, are not well suited to young readers. A far better introduction to the poet, designed for children old enough to begin to understand his work, is Jonathan Levin's wonderfulPoetry for Young People: Walt Whitman(Sterling, 1997).–Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, MECopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.