Since April is National Poetry Month, this would be a nice gift for a child who loves poetry. Langston Hughes died the year I was born, 1967 but his writing will live on through this book of poetry.

Hughes poems express the feelings and experiences of us all. He is well known for the poetry showing the joys and pain of African-American people. His love of writing began with his love of reading. As a lonely child, he was comforted by reading. His first poem was published in Cleveland. He continued to write over 800 poems.

The Dream Keeper is a collection of poems just for kids. I love the poem entitled: The Kids in School with Me. In this poem he describes American kids from many races (Polish, Spanish, Russian, Grecian, Chinese) and how America is made up of "Every race beneath the sun, But our motto for graduation was: One for All and All for One!"

I enjoyed this poem because it shows so well that there is room for everyone, no matter what race. I think this poem promotes social harmony and has a wonderful "sing-song" type rhyme to it.

"And the kid across from me-Just American kids together-The kids in school with me."

Another book I love is called: Tides of Memory. It is a wonderful book of poems for adults which truly will make you realize how human we all are. It explores all aspects of life.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems is essential for anybody trying to share the beauty of Langston Hughes with children. The poems in this collection rank among Hughes' finest. Pinkney's illustrations compliment the imagery of the poetry wonderfully. Children and adults will become true Langston Hughes fans after reading this introductory book.

Brian A. Hopkin's short novel, "THE LICKING VALLEY COON HUNTERS CLUB" (Yard Dog Press, 2000), enjoys the distinction of having been nominated for the Stoker award for Superior Achievement in a Novel. Having said that, and having enjoyed previous work by the author, I'm forced to admit to some measure of disappointment in this particular novel. LICKING VALLEY reintroduces the reader to the dysfunctional private detective, Martin Zolotow, previously featured in a series of stories co-written with David Niall Wilson (including the superior "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," 1995). The present novel, which pits the protagonist against what might be loosely termed a gang of redneck, genetically-engineered vampires, does have a bit to recommend it, but (in my opinion) it ultimately founders under the weight of a number of problems. First, the pace of the novel is so break-neck that Hopkins has decided to reveal bits and pieces of Martin's bruised psyche through the slightly clumsy artifice of occasional flashbacks in which he verbally spars with a police psychologist. Second, Hopkins adopts a literary stratagem that always makes my skin crawl: At various points in the narrative Zolotow quotes or paraphrases lines from well-known literary works. To my mind this is almost always a transparently cheap attempt to appear erudite. Third, too many of the characters appear as cartoonish sterotypes (e.g., the aforementioned psychologist; a young biogeneticist who, like too many scientists that inhabit the world of fiction, is a whiz-kid in the laboratory, but just doesn't understand women; and -- to a certain extent -- Zolotow himself, yet another tough-but-tender-hearted P.I.). LICKING VALLEY isn't a bad effort, but I expected better.

There is a long standing tradition joining Detective stories with the supernatural or involving a science fiction twist. Clive Barker, Phillip K. Dick and Arthur Conan Doyle have dipped their literary toes into this particular pool with fantastic results. Brian Hopkins has added another quality, fast paced volume to the sub-genre with The Licking Valley Coon Hunter's Club.

The hero, Martin Zolotow, joins his predecessors with a few interesting twists of his own. He suffers from a unique malady that can cause bouts of memory loss. It's not the focal point of the story, as is Leonard's little memory quirk in Momento, but it does provide an interesting trait to the character. This little complication explains how his mind is able to make some bizarre connections between pieces of evidence and gives him an excuse to pepper in bits of obscure literary references, poetry and Shakespeare. (Zolotowmemorized bits of prose to train his recollection as a child).

Unfortunately, this same interesting quirk also serves the authors inclusion of several distracting flashbacks of the hero in therapy with the one woman that he seems unattracted to. While these vignettes from his recent past are interesting and do add quite a lot to Zolotow's depth of character, the structure removes the reader from the action and breaks the pace of the story. I wouldn't want to see them removed so much as condensed and possibly included as a prologue or serving as the opening chapter. This however, is the one minor misstep in an otherwise cracking good novel.

The pace is incredibly fast and the action virtually nonstop. The villains are properly menacing and sinister with loads of interesting little eccentricities of their own. Not only that, but there were plenty of them. Every character, save our hero, a misplaced grad-student and a group of kidnapped prostitutes, wears a figurative black hat. Zolotow was really up against the wall in this one.

Licking Valley is a nice, quick read that will leave you wanting more. Hopefully the subtitle- "A Martin Zolotow Mystery" is indicative of the fact that there will be more adventures of my favorite, brain damaged detective forthcoming.

This first novel for Brian A. Hopkins features one Martin Zolotow, a rough hewn, ex-cop with a soft spot for well-turned ankles and a hard fist for nasty, bad guys. He's puppy-dog lovable and wild-animal rugged all in the same breath.

The story opens with Zolotow ("Zolo" to his friends and the ladies) painfully parting with his current lover, a young hooker he's taken off the streets, loved, and is putting on a plane that will send her back to an innocent life with her family. What he finds out immediately after her departure is that some rather creepy bad-guys are waiting to abscond him and whisk him away to... Oklahoma City!

Once in the Sooner state, Zolo's taken to a secluded stronghold somewhere in the OK panhandle, but not before he's recruited to rescue the daughter of a major crime figure. His incentive (besides just staying alive) is the young woman he had just put on the plane. He fails; she dies.

Put through his paces in this wild, action-packed adventure, Zolo battles both the members of the Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (they're originally from Ohio and not native Oklahoman bad blood) and his own muddled memory, an affliction that is at once his Achilles heel and a strange endearing quality. He's beaten with a ball bat, dragged through cow manure, chased, and shot at, but never totally thwarted because the poetry-spouting detective's acerbic wit and undaunting sense of what's right makes him too driven to stay down. Oh, and also some very lovely women come to his aid.

Mix in a snarling dog, a gaunt bad-guy in a wheelchair, some women who can handle both being sexy in bubble baths and in employing martial arts kicks--oh, and vampires!--and the action is non-stop!

Hopkins takes the reader on a wild romp with sure ease in his knowledge of weapons, chemistry, and women. Yet it's Zolo's revealing himself as kindhearted as Joe R. Lansdale's Hap Collins (and just as unlucky!) and as blindly chivalrous as John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee that make Zolo a whole new breed of hero, the kind who would attack a windmill on a seatless motorcycle in a tiger print bikini brief to save a lady! But that's another adventure all together.

An amazingly rich read. Brian Hopkins tackles a myriad of subplots with relative ease, bringing everything tightly together. There are no loose-ends...only straight-forward prose that kicks and screams. Though COLD AT HEART is a relatively short work, it shows his ability to handle longer pieces, and I sincerely look forward to reading him again. Well done!