How Do I Love Thee?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 43rd sonnet from Sonnets from the Portuguese, published in 1850, famously begins, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” The second title in our picture book poem series, How Do I Love Thee? illustrated by Mati Rose McDonough, who illustrated I Carry Your Heart With Me, by E.E. Cummings, follows a father and a son on a fishing trip and captures all of the emotions of Browning’s beloved poem.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both Britain and the United States during her lifetime.

Mati Rose McDonough studied painting at the California College of the Arts and has had many shows around the country. She lives in San Francisco where she regularly encounters lucky elephants, talking birds and a mysterious girl who always wears feathers in her hair. Her first children's book, the children's adaptation of E.E. Cummings' poem I Carry Your Heart With Me, was released in 2014.