Author/illustrator team Lee Bennett Hopkins and Tomie dePaola, who also collaborated on such holiday poetry collections as Easter Buds Are Springing: Poems for Easter and Good Morning To You, Valentine: Poems For Valentines Day, here present twenty poems to celebrate America's birthday. Penned by authors well-known in the adult world of letters, such as Carl Sandburg and Stephen Vincent Benét, as well as in the field of children's literature (Rachel Field, Lois Lenski), these poems offers a pleasing array of celebratory snippets. Dedicated to fireworks, and fun times, most of the selections here address themselves to the celebration of July 4th, rather than to its history...

I enjoyed Beat the Drum, Independence Day Has Come: Poems for the Fourth of July quite a bit, and think that it would make an excellent 4th of July read-aloud. The poems are engaging and entertaining, and the artwork was quite appealing. The human figures here are trademark dePaola, but the overall style of the illustrations is something new, in my experience of his work. Done in three tones - appropriately, red and blue ink on the white page - they have a simplicity that is charming. I particularly liked the pages that were red or blue, with white lettering and artwork. All in all, a fun holiday poetry collection, one that I would recommend to those in the market for fun, celebratory 4th of July titles for younger children. ( )