Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night

Written by: Joyce Sidman

Illustrated by: Rick Allen

        Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night is a Newbery Honor collection of 12 poems of various forms that are brought together to explore the idea of life in the dark night.  Each poem details the lives of different animals or plants at night, and is accompanied by a stunning illustration and informational blurb on the right side of the page to introduce new vocabulary and additional details on the subject of the poem.

        Joyce Sidman demonstrates her mastery of language and artistry within every poem in this book.  She uses a wide variety of poetic forms (i.e. ballad, concrete, uni sunt, etc.) to offer a broad introduction to poem structures.  Additionally, each word is carefully placed to create vivid sensory depictions and to play with the sounds of lines and language flow through rhyme, repetition, alliteration, line breaks, and so much more.  Each poem strings words together to create distinct lines that contribute to readers' understandings to each of the characters presented; with such a wide variety of animal and plant subjects, ranging from oak trees to "dark emperor" owls, Sidman demonstrates the fluidity of poetry to create new experiences and perspectives for any subject.

         The opening stanza of the first poem, "Welcome to the Night," immediately draws readers in:

"To all of you who crawl and creep,

who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep,

who wake at dust and throw off sleep:

Welcome to the night." (p. 6). 

I love this stanza because Sidman utilizes vivid sensory language through onomatopoeia to transport readers with all of the sounds of life in the woods, while the action words connect readers to the movement of life and invite readers into the story.  I also think that the alliteration, rhyme, and repetition of the final line, "Welcome to the night," to close each stanza within the poem make this a great read aloud by allowing children to participate in reciting the poem.

            This book would not have been complete without the intricate illustrations that Rick Allen created.  According to Allen's website, he spent almost two years completing the extensive process of making the linoleum cut prints that accompanied the poems.  This unique illustrative medium, in combination with the dark color palette that Allen used to reflect real the night setting, drew my eyes to the darkness within each illustration.  I found this attraction to the darkness strange because my eye is usually drawn to any and all colors, but the skill of both Allen in his art and Sidman in her text trained my mind to focus on the elements of night.  Additionally, the intricate line within each print created a rich texture and depth to each illustration.

            There are two full-bleed illustrations within the book- on the first and last pages.  The first one depicts dusk, as readers are entering their nighttime journey, and the final one shows dawn and the end of night's reign.  One aspect that immediately caught my attention was the presence of the the eft within each illustration (except for the final full-bleed to close the book).  In an entertaining Where's Waldo-like adventure, I found myself searching for the eft as I moved along the story, and was incredibly excited to read the poem that featured the "wandering eft" itself.  As mentioned earlier, the final full-bleed illustration is the only page missing the eft, which I think demonstrates the end of night and the camouflaged status of all the animals, except the owl, at dawn.  Additionally, by zooming out with respect to the perspective presented to readers, the reader grows distant from the night setting as day comes.

             I am not well-versed in poetry, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I think the text aligns beautifully with the illustrations to create a book that would make a great addition to any elementary units on nocturnal animals and habitats, or even just as a way to expose students to quality poetry in the classroom.  I also loved that this book exposes children to various forms of poetry and remains interesting through all of the different perspectives presented, and think it would be great to share aloud to students!