Mary Oliver, Holding On To Wonder

Calkins Creek

(Astra Books for Young Readers)

(pub. 10.14.2025)

48 pages

Ages 7 -10

Author: Erin Frankel

   Illustrator: Jasu Hu

Character: Mary Oliver

Overview:

" Young Mary Oliver was enthralled by nature. In the forest, she wondered about the birds and the lilies and the water in the stream—about all the things that cannot speak yet somehow spoke to Mary. She wondered, too, about poetry, about how words pieced together filled her with light and how some poems felt like they were written just for her. How could this be?

Author Erin Frankel shows how Mary Oliver held on to that sense of wonder from her childhood, channeling it into some of the most beloved poems of the past hundred years. Illustrator Jasu Hu’s lush nature scenes beautifully complement Frankel’s soulful writing about the creative process. Together text and art honor Mary Oliver and her astonishing poetry."

Tantalizing taste:

" Mary had many questions.

How would it feel to be a forest creature -

or to have wings and fly?

Is the center of a flower called the heart?

Are rocks somehow alive?...

She noticed

and listened

and wondered,

then wrote poems that long to be told –

poems meant for everyone.

Because Mary Oliver hoped that there was someone

just like you

on the other side of her words

holding onto wonder

just like Mary."

And something more: The author, Erin Frankel, shared in the Author's Note: "Mary did not have all the answers to her questioning, nor did she want them. To wonder and rejoice in the unknown was much more interesting. We all start out as children wondering, but it isn't easy to hold on to wonder in a world that favors knowing over not knowing. Holding on to wonder was the life work of Mary Oliver. Her words remind us that it can be our work too."