Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets

Winner 2018 Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrators

The instant New York Times bestseller!

A Newbery Medalist and a Caldecott Honoree offer a glorious, lyrical ode to poets who have sparked a sense of wonder.

Out of gratitude for the poet’s art form, Newbery Award–winning author and poet Kwame Alexander, along with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, present original poems that pay homage to twenty famed poets who have made the authors’ hearts sing and their minds wonder. Stunning mixed-media images by Ekua Holmes, winner of a Caldecott Honor and a John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, complete the celebration and invite the reader to listen, wonder, and perhaps even pick up a pen.

"Caldecott Honor–winner Holmes’s (Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer) textured-paper collages use bold, angular forms and sunlit colors to spotlight poets and their subject matter…The exercise of celebrating poets in their own voices leads naturally to the idea of the classroom writing prompt—which Colderley, writing haiku in the style of Basho, seems to anticipate: “Pens scratching paper/ Syllables counted with care/ Poets blossoming.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Newbery medalist Kwame Alexander has come up with a fresh and joyful way to interest children in poetry…Holmes takes collage work to a new level, with gloriously colored art that, the closer you look, tells further stories within stories. Each illustration captures not just the feeling of the poem, but wakes up readers to life’s excitements and small joys. Exemplary words and pictures make this a multicultural masterwork." Booklist (starred review)

"The three authors take turns emulating their idols, who include Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins and Terrance Hayes…Complementing the infectious mood of tribute is the spirited mixed-media artwork by Holmes (‘Voice of Freedom’), a harmonious riot of color, texture and pattern." The New York Times Book Review