Boys and Girls

James W. Foley possessed a rare gift: he remembered what the world looked like before the world taught you to stop looking. These poems capture the unselfconscious joy, the small emergencies, and the vast imaginations of childhood with a sincerity that feels almost daring in its gentleness. Written from the perspective of children themselves, rather than the usual adult nostalgia about childhood, each verse inhabits its young speaker completely, whether celebrating the glory of a new pair of shoes or mourning the tragedy of a lost marble. Foley was Poet Laureate of North Dakota and city editor of the Bismarck Tribune, yet here he abdicates all grown-up authority to speak in the voice of a girl dreaming of pretty things, a boy planning tomorrow's adventure, a child listening for wonder. The collection radiates warmth like afternoon sunlight through a kitchen window. It's for anyone who has ever been a child and suspects they still carry one inside them.