EMILY

A Canadian novelist (Redwork, 1990) pays tribute to Amherst's great poet. Dickinson's new neighbor, a little girl, tells the story: a poetic missive—dried flowers with a plea to the child's mother to "Revive me with your music. It would be spring to me"—is slipped through the mail slot. Mother is reluctant, but Father senses the quality behind "the Myth," explaining that poetry is like music: "...sometimes a magic happens and it seems the music starts to breathe. It sends a shiver through you." When mother and child pay their call, Emily flees upstairs to listen to the piano from the landing, where the child joins her for a brief exchange of words and impromptu gifts—the lily bulbs she has brought for a precious bit of paper with a handwritten poem. The story is very quiet but beautifully crafted, with a clarity of observation and a delicately tart edge that creditably emulate Emily herself. Cooney's exquisite mixed- media art is perfect for the 19th-century New England setting; her beautifully balanced compositions are enriched with charming domestic detail and just a hint of satirical humor. An evocative glimpse of a formal society that will seem quite foreign to most children today, and of a mysterious, oddly independent woman who fascinated her own contemporaries as much as she does ours. (Picture book. 5+)