Looking at common—and sometimes uncommon—objects and events in fresh ways is one of the hallmarks of poetry. Here, two poets offer 26 imaginative, often playful free verse poems on a range of subjects. Across the poems, the common thread is new perspectives. Comma-shaped tadpoles are “the liveliest of all punctuation.” (“Tadpole”) “It’s good to free a secret / and let the place in your chest / where it clawed you like a badger / scar over and heal.” (“Secret”) July is “boiled and salted / like a peanut … the crimson crayon / melting in a sunny car” (“July”). A thunderstorm in the night “stumbles around, bumping the walls … now and then lighting a match / and then, just as quickly, blowing it out.” (“Thunderstorm”) Divided into four sections—fire, water, air, earth—the poems are each paired with a full-page illustration. The artful compositions are rendered in an overall subdued palette, accompanying rather than competing with or overpowering the poems. Notes from both poets, along with two bonus poems, speak to the “gift of imagination” we all possess. (Ages 6-10)