Papa Is a Poet

A Story About Robert Frost


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Christy Ottaviano Books (Macmillan)

(pub.10.15.2013)  40 pages 

A True Tale with 
A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Natalie S. Bober

           and Illustrator: Rebecca Gibbon

    

C haracter:  Robert Frost - poet 

O verview from the back cover: 

      "When Robert Frost was a child, his family thought he would grow up to be a baseball player. Instead, he became a poet. His life on a farm in New Hampshire inspired him to write 'poetry that talked,' and today he is famous for his vivid descriptions of the rural life he loved so much.
      There was a time, though, when Frost had to struggle to get his poetry published. Told from the point of view of Lesley, Robert Frost's oldest daughter, this is the story of how a lover of language found his voice."

T antalizing taste: 

      "Papa thought that any book worth reading twice was worth owning. So instead of buying desserts, we bought books.
     Papa told us to reread stories we remembered with pleasure. He wanted us to enjoy books so much that we would be lonely without them. And he told us to memorize poems in order to know them by heart...
     Papa did things his way. He decided to milk his cow at midnight so he could stay awake and read Shakespeare and write poems in the hush of a sleeping household."

and something more: What a wonderful idea for a book about Robert Frost -- to focus on Frost's choice to pursue a life as a poet, and thereby take a road "less traveled by...that has made all the difference."
      I was curious as to why the author, Natalie S. Bober, chose to write Papa Is A Poet from the first person perspective of Frost's oldest daughter, Lesley. The Author's Note explains that "Lesley and her father had a close relationship and very early on he taught her to read and write. In 1905, when she was not quite six years old, he encouraged her to keep a journal of her 'travels and adventures' around and near the farm. She kept the journal until she was ten. Much of what Lesley says in this story has been adapted from that journal and from [Bober's] biography, A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost, written some years ago for young adult readers."
     The book includes a lovely Robert Frost quotation: "A poem is a momentary stay against confusion... a voyage in discovery [that] begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love."