ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
PICTURE BOOKS
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Village Blacksmith

32 pp. | Candlewick | April, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5362-0443-8 $16.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by G. Brian Karas. If you remember this poem, you probably remember it as "Under the spreading chestnut tree," and indeed a chestnut it is. But an agreeable one, as here partnered with modest pencil-and-crayon illustrations by Karas, expanding (barely) upon Longfellow's words and placing the poem (gently) in our own time. We see a young ponytailed blacksmith--hardly the brawny-armed hero of the text, but looking sturdy enough--as he and his truck pick up scrap metal at the junkyard and take it back to his shop 'neath that legendary tree. Alongside Longfellow's "children coming home from school," we watch him forge, the fierce coal fire dramatically shooting orange-yellow sparks onto a palette of mainly subdued tones of gray, brown, and green. While there's a small visual through line about the smith fixing a fence for a neighbor, Karas does not attempt to impose a new story upon the poem and respects its saddest moment, when the blacksmith remembers his late wife, showing us the man with his children in church, gazing out the window at the graveyard. It's all in the poem. At one time "The Village Blacksmith" was a standard recitation piece among schoolchildren; try it out for storytime and see if Longfellow's sonorous, rolling verse can win today’s kids over. (I bet yes.)
Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2020

RELATED 

PICTURE BOOKS

Born Ready
by Patterson, Jodie
PICTURE BOOKS

The House of Grass and Sky
by Ray, Mary Lyn
PICTURE BOOKS

The Dog's Gardener
by Storms, Patricia
PICTURE BOOKS

And I Paint It
by Kephart, Beth
PICTURE BOOKS

Poem in My Pocket
by Tougas, Chris
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?