David Mason, Colorado's poet laureate from 2010 to 2014, has penned a children's book called "Davey McGravy." His main character feels out-of-place in the world. He's a middle child. His mother has died. He's bullied at school. Davey's imagination is his escape.
Mason says the book is meant to be read aloud to children. Here's the first chapter:
To Love
May I call you Love?
Very well, then, you are Love,
and this is a tale about a boy
named Davey.
Never mind the rest of his name.
You need only know he was born
in the land of rain
and the tallest of tall trees—
great shaggy cedars like the boots
of giants covered in green,
and where the giants had gone
no one could ever tell.
Only their boots remained
on the wet green grass,
surrounded by ferns on the shore
of a long, cold, windy lake.
That’s where Davey was born, Love.
That’s where you must imagine him,
a wee squall of tears and swaddling,
a babe, as you too were a babe,
with parents and the whole canoe,
the whole catastrophe
we call a family—
the human zoo.
