George, Kristine O’Connell. 2001. TOASTING MARSHMALLOWS: CAMPING POEMS. Ill. by Kate Kiesler. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN 061804597X.

Experience a family camping trip without leaving the library with this selection of thirty poems celebrating the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the great outdoors. Included poem themes range from pitching a tent to fishing and hiking, through wildlife encounters and exploring caves, to packing and returning home.

Award winning children’s poet Kristine O’Connell George uses sensory words and unexpected descriptive phrasing to create vivid mental pictures for the reader:

Cave
The cave breathes icy and ancient,
measuring time with slow drips
that echo as water hits granite
somewhere deep in this cavern.

Owl
I hear you, Owl.
The wind rush
of your wings
shouldered and spread,
pleating the night,
the satin flap of your feathered cape.

The Best Paths
The best paths
are whispers
in the grass,
a bent twig,
a token, a hint,
easily missed.

The best paths
hide themselves
until the right
someone
comes along.

The best paths
lead you
to where
you didn't know
you wanted to go.

Artist Kate Kiesler uses acrylics to paint illustrations that capture the mood and setting of each poem. Her paintings are detailed yet impressionistic. Kiesler’s painting technique perfectly captures the soft radiance of campfire light, the shimmer of sunlight sparkling on river water ripples, and the silvery gleam of moon and star light far from the glow of urban lights.

Reviews and Awards

Booklist starred review: “this fine collection brings the outdoors up close in quiet, immediate poems that engage all the senses.”

Publishers Weekly starred review: “George's poems are well crafted, varied and easily accessible. George's poems shine, the images clear and startling. {Kielser] suffuses her acrylic landscapes with light filtered through leaves. A concrete poem in the shape of a waning moon is exquisite…Readers will definitely want S-mores.”

School Library Journal starred review: “the poems are varied and inventive, replete with marvelous images and universal truths.”

School Library Journal Best Books Of The Year, 2001
Best Books For Children 7^th & 8^th Editions
Bulletin of The Center For Children's Books Recommended Titles

Connections

Try a Campout Story Time program featuring some of the following books, along with campfire songs from Camp Granada: Sing-Along Camp Songs by Frane Lessac, while sitting around a flashlight campfire and munching a no-bake S’mores mix of Teddy Grahams, mini marshmallows, and mini chocolate chips - fun!

S is for S'mores: A Camping Alphabet, Helen Foster James, 2007
A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee, Chris Van Dusen, 2003
When I Go Camping With Grandma, Marion Dane Bauer, 1996
Camping With the President, Ginger Wadsworth, 2009
When We Go Camping, Margriet Ruurs, 2001

Other collaborative poetry books by George and Kiesler:
Great Frog Race and Other Poems, 1997
Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems, 1998