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Lemonade Sun and Other Summer Poems
If you want to celebrate summer with poetry, this is your book. As Steinberg said, "The richness of Dotlich's figurative
language catapults readers into the midst of summer's fun, freedom, and wonder" (1998).
Dotlich uses classic summer themes - lemonade, sunflowers, fireworks, balloons, jump rope, bumble bees, bubbles and even
jellyfish - to remind readers of summer or to show us details we may not have noticed before. Her poetry is simple and
accessible but also exact and beautiful. A dragonfly, for example, is a "sky-ballerina." Sunflowers are "garden
kings with chocolate eyes." A ladybug is a "crimson queen / with midnight polished / polka dots." Dotlich
has a way of bringing the unnoticed to our attention in a way that is unexpected and exciting.
Her poetry makes use of sound elements such as alliteration, rhyme, assonance, and consonance. The poem fireworks
is a good example of these elements: "Emerald glitter / fills the sky; / a thousand dashing / dragon eyes / sparkle!
flash! / spiral, / climb / leaping, / leaving Earth / behind. / Roman candles / sizzle, / shatter, / diamonds dazzle, / rubies
/ scatter ; spilling silver / stars of fire-/ blasting bits / of coper wire."
Jan Spivey Gilchrist illustrates this collection of summer poems with bright acrylics that add even more life to the
text. Particularly wonderful is her depcition of the moon for the poem "Summer Swinging," about swinging during the night,
pretending you are swinging to the moon and back, catching stars with your toes.
Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. Lemonade Sun and Other Summer Poems. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.
Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Wordsong - Boyd Mills Press, 1998. ISBN 1563976609.
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