Walt Whitman: Words For America
Author Barbara Kerley and artists Caldecott Honor and Brian Selznick collaborate on this extraordinary book which seems to bring Walt Whitman and the period around the Civil War back to life.
David Saylor and Brian Selznick have designed a hard-cover book in a deep shade of green with large shiny gold letters. A rendition of a young Walt Whitman appears in an oval frame on the book's cover. "In addition to his work as a printer and a writer, Walt had also worked as an office boy, a teacher, and a carpenter." The facets of Whitman's personality and how his free-range poetry developed are explored. Best known for his poem, "O Captain, My Captain!" from his book Leaves of Grass, it was President Lincoln's assasination which inspired Whitman to write this well-known verse and express America's grief and loss.
