A labor of love. What fun for someone who loves poetry to get to spend six months simply reading poetry in order to find the poems for an alphabet of animal rhymes. I needed poems that were not only wonderful in themselves–but easy enough
A Sip of Aesop
Since I have always loved the Aesopian fables, putting together this collection of rhymed versions of my favorites was a total joy. Scholastic paired me with the irrepressible Karen Barbour who worked on the book after having a baby.
Here There Be Witches
Short stories and poems, all written by me and having to do with witches. A number of them had been published already, but there are new stories as well. Each story and poem begins with a short introduction about how it came to be written.
Before the Storm
Georgia Pugh is my next door neighbor, a wonderful painter who has pieces in some of the finest museums in the country. I wrote the text for her, setting it in our combined front yards, with my own three children starring as two brothers and a sister on a hot, hot summer day. She painted her own
Xanadu 2
The second of a series of the best original adult fantasy short stories and poems, including one of my own poems in each volume. Martin H. Greenberg and I sold the book together, but only my name appears on the cover because I edited the book. He handled the monetary details. Rave
And Twelve Chinese Acrobats
Based on a family story that has grown enormously over the years, this book is about the time the Yolens lived in the Ukraine and the oldest boy Lev (my Uncle Lou) was a troublemaker. Sent away to a military academy–an enormous decision for a Jewish family–he gambled away the gold
Old Dame Counterpane
This feminist counting rhyme origin story began when I saw Ruth Councell’s pictures for my book What Rhymes With Moon. She had hung all the pictures on clothesline around the inside of her house and had a party for viewing. The editor came, too, and we found ourselves gobsmacked in
Old MacDonald’s Song Book
The third of four music books I did for Boyds Mills. Adam was wonderful to work with, shipping me off the simple arrangements which I then played on the piano. We figured if I could sight read them, ANYONE could! Many were animal songs I’d taught him when he was a child. I picked the songs, wrote
Girl in the Golden Bower, The
An original fairy tale about a child whose sorceress stepmother leaves her out in the woods to die. Jane Dyer wanted to illustrate an original fairy tale and I had the first three pages of this one done, without a plot in sight. The editor Maria Modugno put it under contract and hoped I’d find a story in
Here There Be Unicorns
Short stories and poems, all written by me and having to do with unicorns. Among the stories is the much reprinted “The Boy Who Drew Unicorns.” Each story and poem begins with a short introduction about how it came to be written.