The Centaur

Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? First published in 1956, May Swensonrs"s "The Centaur" remains one of her most popular and most anthologized poems. This is its first appearance as a picture book for children. In images bright and brisk and tangible, the poet re-creates the joy of riding a stick horse through a small-town summer. We find ourselves, with her, straddling "a long limber horse with . . . a few leaves for a tail," and pounding through the lovely dust along the path by the old canal. As her shape shifts from child to horse and back, we know exactly what she feels. Sherry Meidellrs"s water-color illustrations perfectly convey the wit and beauty of May Swensonrs"s poem. These are playful, satisfying images full of vitality and imagination. Meidell handles the joy of poemrs"s fantasy and the joy of its occasional naughtiness with equal success.

May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah in 1913, the first of ten children. As a child, she played in the willows and along a canal that carried water from the nearby mountains through her small town, just as the speaker in "The Centaur" does. Eleven volumes of her poetry were published during her lifetime, earning her dozens of awards, membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. During the last years of her life, she served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. May died in 1989 and is buried less than a mile from her canal in “The Centaur.”

Sherry Meidell lives in West Bountiful, Utah, and coincidentally spent many childhood summers near May Swenson's home. A member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, she specializes in brushes and watercolor with pencil for detail. The Centaur is the ninth book she has illustrated.