Wendell Berry's "Terrapin" reviewed by a boy

Owen and I sat down on two different occasions in the last week to read Terrapin; the first was on a Saturday, and the second was in the evening on a school day. Our Saturday session went more smoothly than the school day one, mostly because he was tired at the end of a long day of work. Our plan was simple: I asked him to begin with the cover and to move to the first poem, observing as he went. When we got to the first illustration and poem, I asked him to read each poem aloud, after which we would discuss what he thought of the poem and illustration together. Owen has never read poetry that isn’t singsongy and childish—so I was surprised when he was able, with almost no help, to read through the poems in the collection with ease (below we’ve included three recordings of Owen reading); he did not hesitate at the frequent enjambments and only needed help when he came to the few words he did not know—a testament to the clarity of each poem’s content and the appropriateness of the vocabulary level throughout.

Read (and hear) it all at Front Porch Republic