The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Yolen, Jane

My Uncle Emily

32 pp. | Philomel | May, 2009 | Trade ISBN 978-0-399-24005-8 $17.99

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Yolen stitches a story about Emily Dickinson's nephew Gib, a kindred spirit who called the poet "Uncle Emily." The book's greatest charm is how its outcome arises from Emily's oblique yet penetrating wisdom. Carpenter's illustrations capture personalities and period in freely sketched portraits resembling old newspaper engravings, with a soft autumnal palette. Fact and fiction are nicely sorted in a concluding note.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2009