Come and Play: Children of Our World Having Fun Book

Come and Play features 32 photographs of children from everywhere! China, Japan, Greece, Wales, Morocco, Oman, Texas, New York, and many more. Each photo is beautiful, thought provoking, and accompanied by lines of children’s poetry that will amuse young readers, and cause adult readers to reflect and laugh as they see the images through children’s eyes. The photographs span the last fifty years; while the children who wrote about them are a diverse group between the ages of 5 and 11.

Children's Literature

During 2006-07, students at Hunter College Elementary School in New York City wrote poetic responses to photographs of kids from around the world. These twenty-seven "riffs' delightfully capture the spirit of the photos, from the splash-silly exuberance of youngsters at a North Korean beach to the contemplative Alaskan grandfather and preschooler playing with string. The poems and photos (taken over the last fifty years by luminaries such as the French Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Italian Ferdinando Scianna and the British Ian Berry) work off one another so well that reading a poem calls for a careful look at the photo, which then enhances a second reading. All this, in turn, may inspire young readers to create their own poems and photos. The book's back matter includes such visual treasures as a location map for each image and group photos of young poets and adult photographers—all looking impish no matter their age. Reviewer: Mary Quattlebaum