Dear Mr. Longfellow: Letters to and from the Children's Poet

By Sydelle Pearl

Book Overview

If you were attending school in the late-nineteenth century, it's very likely that your teacher would have taught you to memorize lines from "The Village Blacksmith" by renowned poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And on the classroom wall you'd probably see his portrait looking down benignly on you and your classmates. Longfellow was so famous and beloved by youth in this era that he was known as "the children's poet." Students not only memorized his poetry but sent him hundreds of letters.In this charming biography, storyteller and author Sydelle Pearlrecounts the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by drawing upon the letters he received from his young admirers. In their letters, children from yesteryear reveal details about their lives that reach across the years to young people today. The letters also highlight the unique, close relationship that children shared with Longfellow. A girl from West Virginia writes, "Thank you so much for writing for children.... It makes us feel that we are not forgotten." Others ask him about what he did as a boy or a young man. In one extraordinary gesture of friendship, the schoolchildren of Cambridge celebrated his birthday by presenting him with a chair created from the wood of the "spreading chestnut tree" made famous in his poem "The Village Blacksmith." Longfellow dedicated his poem "From My Arm-Chair" to these thoughtful children.Complete with selected poems and photographs of the poet and his family, Dear Mr. Longfellow brings to life a famous figure of American literature and a distant, simpler age in the history of our country.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1616146389
• ISBN13: 9781616146382
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.7" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful tribute to Mr. Longfellow

I have learned so much about Mr. Longfellow and why he was so beloved. I went to a Longfellow Middle School in Wisconsin and had no idea why there were so many schools named after the poet. His humility and kindness, particularly to the young, is touching and inspiring. The book is engaging enough for adults but written simply enough for good young readers to manage.