The Bat-Poet by Randall Jarrell

There was once a little brown bat who couldn't sleep days--he kept waking up and looking at the world. Before long he began to see things differently from the other bats who from dawn to sunset never opened their eyes. The Bat-Poet is the story of how he tried to make the other bats see the world his way.

With illustrations by Maurice Sendak, The Bat-Poet--a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book selection--is a collection of the bat's own poems and the bat's own world: the owl who almost eats him; the mockingbird whose irritable genius almost overpowers him; the chipmunk who loves his poems, and the bats who can't make heads or tails of them; the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, and sparrows who fly in and out of Randall Jarrell's funny, lovable, truthful fable.

Randall Jarrell (1914-65) received the National Book Award for his book of poems The Woman at the Washington Zoo. His children's book The Animal Family was named a Newbery Honor Book, and his translation of The Three Sisters was produced by the Actors Studio Theatre.

Maurice Sendak's books have sold over 50 million copies and have been translated into more than 40 languages. He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are and is the creator of such classics as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Higglety Pigglety Pop!, and Nutshell Library. In 1970 he received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Illustration, in 1983 he received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association, and in 1996 he received a National Medal of Arts in recognition of his contribution to the arts in America. In 2003 Sendak received the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an annual international prize for children's literature established by the Swedish government.

Review Quotes:

"This is a shining jewel of a book.It cries to be read aloud at story hours, in classrooms, and at bedtime, for it speaks to every child.

Poet Randall Jarrell says us his own song in a luminous, flawless prose that dances from the tongue and in bat poems of piercing lyric sweetness- Maurice Sendak's half lit woodland scenes and creatures are stroked exquisitely by pen 'in ink more gray than black. The totality charms by turns the eye, the ear, and the Imagination, and as true poetry must, it satisfies the heart-"-- School Library Journal

"Children will cherish The Bat-Poet, and they won't stop reading it, no matter how old they get.""-- Gene Shalit, McCalls

"One of the most entrancing books for children of all ages, including mine, that I have ever read."-- Conrad Aiken