A LUCKY THING is a collection of poems written by a girl as she sits in the musty old barn, looking out over the farm. The result of her efforts are thirteen poems concerned with life around her. From the first poem, Schertle’s metaphors draw the reader in with their believable parallels. “I’ll scatter some words,/ watch them grow./ I’ll plant/ a meadow.” Already the nature theme is laid out, but not with too heavy a hand. Lines like these provide something to visualize. Publishers Weekly says that “The imagery is crisp, taut, and always apt”. When describing a rooster weather vane, we are told that “A rusty squeak/ is the rooster’s crow./ He points the way/ for the wind to go.” Again, the squeak as the crow puts the reader right there on the roof. In addition, Schertle gives a kind of majestic quality to the rooster, up on its throne, by indicating that it is in charge of the wind.

Many of the poems ask the reader to take another look at the world around them; to see things in different way. Publishers Weekly points out that “the poems offer an invitation to view the world more closely.” A good example of this is the poem “One” in which a frog croaks out that the pond “was one drop/ deeper.” Schertle also gives the invitation to step back, as in the poem “From a Distance…” Here the girl describes sheep as the things which they appear to be from a distance: mushrooms, sandbags, pillows, tombstones. She even manages to portray the act of searching for words in the line “Burlap sacks of something.” The space gives just the right indication on the author pausing, perhaps touching the tip of her tongue with the pencil lead in contemplation.

Schertle uses space to convey meaning in other poems as well. In “Head Full of Turtle” a sense of the girl’s writer’s block is almost concrete when the turtle imagery is combined with the placement of the words on the page. “Got to find/ a way to nudge this old slow stepper across the page.” It is almost impossible to read this poem, even silently, without hearing a kind of s-t-r-a-i-n in the tone.

The paintings are somewhat realistic, and appropriately convey the natural setting of the poetry. Children will be eager to find the writing implements present on each page. Downright chaos could ensue during a group reading of “Invitation from a Mole” when children examine the strange creature that is the mole. Something about the way the girl is painted in the final picture lends believability to the voice. While her surroundings may seem a little cartoony at times, the way the moonlight lights on her face, her expression, even her slight touch of rosacea, make us believe it could be us writing these poems.

1999. Review of A Lucky Thing in Publishers Weekly.