Poetry for Kids: Emily Dickinson

Susan Snively, PhD, is the author of four books of poetry: From This Distance (Alice James, 1981), Voices in the House (Alabama Poetry Series, 1988), The Undertow (University of Central Florida, 1998), and Skeptic Traveler (David Robert Books, 2005). She has taught at Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Amherst College and has received fellowships from the NEA and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. For 27 years, she directed the Writing Center at Amherst College and is the Associate Dean of Students. She earned her BA from Smith College and her MA and PhD from Boston University. Dr. Snively has given readings and lectures at the Salem Athenaeum, Marlboro College, University of Louisville, Wesleyan University, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Monadnock Lyceum Lecture series in Peterborough, NH, and elsewhere. A guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum, Snively wrote and narrated the films “Seeing New Englandly,” and “My Business is to Sing,” produced by Ernest Urvater, in the series “Angles of a Landscape.” She regularly leads discussions on various aspects of Dickinson for the museum’s monthly poetry group. Her first novel, The Heart Has Many Doors, about Dickinson’s love affair with Judge Otis Phillips Lord, was published in February 2015, by White River Press. She lives in Amherst with her husband, Peter Czap.

As a young girl growing up in Tours, France, Christine Davenier loved listening to her older sister read fairy tales aloud. But she frequently found herself wondering, What does the princess’s beautiful dress look like? or How exquisite are her jewels? Christine was left to her own imagination, for the books had few illustrations. So it comes as little surprise that today, Christine embraces her career as an illustrator. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to create the illustrations I dreamed about seeing as a child,” she says. When Christine was fourteen, she received her first box of watercolor paints, a gift from her grandmother. That was the beginning of many afternoons spent painting together in her grandmother’s garden. “My grandmother was an extraordinary woman,” Christine says. “Even though she worked in an office all her life, she was an artist through and through. She shared everything she knew about color—in painting and in life. Her wisdom and talent still inspire me today.” She has illustrated many picture books, including The Other Dog by Madeline L’Engle and The Very Fairy Princess series by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton. Christine lives in Paris, France.