A Song About Myself, by John Keats, illustrated by Chris Raschka; Candlewick Press, $17.99, 40 pages, ages 7-9. 

A SONG ABOUT MYSELF. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Chris Raschka. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

British poet John Keats (1795-1821) published fifty-four poems during his brief life, yet those pieces secured his place among the “second generation” of Romantic poets like Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe. Keats wrote the three-part A Song About Myself while traveling through Scotland and included it in a letter to his fifteen-year old younger sister, Fanny. The whimsical, cheeky verses about Keats as a naughty boy wandering the world are a departure from the poet’s better-known odes and sonnets. Keats describes the world outside of London and reveals that no matter where he is, some things remain the same.

A SONG ABOUT MYSELF. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Chris Raschka. Reproduced by permission of…