I don't think I know enough about William Blake to appreciate this...I was glad when it was over. ( )

The illustrations that accompany the poems are sweet and magical and restrained. The poems are all of different syntax and tempo, making each page an interesting new read. ( )

It is rare to win both the Newberry Medal Award and a Caldecott Honor Award for the same book.
Well worth the accolades, this book is lushly illustrated with a silly manner that keeps the readers attention while smiling at the creativity. In addition, well-written poems in the style of William Blake hold the readers interest. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Enjoyable set of poems. I don't know the original poetry that inspired it, though, so I probably didn't get as much from it as I should have. ( )

Asher and I have declared this book to be "cozy". High praise from both of us. ( )

This is a collection of poetry written in the style (somewhat) of William Blake.Travelers join together at William Blake's Inn and silliness ensues. Beautiful poems couple with gorgeous illustrations to make a great picture book. As a fan of William Blake, this was a hit! ( )

Do you wonder what it would be like to visit William Blake? This book is an award winning poetry book for good reason! Nancy Willard engages young readers in poetry. With such funny animal characters and amazing artwork, this book will delight readers of all ages. ( )

This book is a collection of poems that describe the guest who comes to William Blakes Inn. These poems are based by the poet William Blake. This would be good for older grades like 4 and 5. ( )

A collection of poems based on the work by poet William Blake. Each has its own little story hidden between the stanzas, and beautiful pictures to accompany them. ( )

This Newbery-winning and Caldecott finalist collection of poetry honors poet William Blake. Many of the poems reference Blake's poems so it is probably most appreciated by those familiar with his poetry. The author's set-up is an inn honoring the bard, visited by various persons and animals. It makes me want to pick up Blake's work to read in the near future, possibly for poetry month in April. ( )

Summary:
This book is lots of poems about William Blake. It also has a story, if you can follow it. The poems are of William Blake, the marmalade man, a cow, a cat, and many other animals.

Personal reaction:
I myself could not get very interested in the poems. Maybe if had read more of the stuff by William Blake I would understand the meaning of text. I did like "The tiger asks Blake for a bedtime story" the best.

Classroom extensions:
1. Have students take a poem and decipher the meaning.
2. Have children try to draw their own illustration and write a poem to go with the illustration. ( )

This book is page after page of clever, quirky poetry that praises and holds in high esteem William Blake.

Summary: This book is about a grown man named William Blake. He is a marvelously man who has a bright mind when it comes to poetry. His poetry’s rhymes very well. What this is, is an inn ran by William Blake himself and it is staffed by two dragons that brew and bake, two angels that wash and shake, and a rabbit who shows visitors their rooms. Within this inn is some remarkable people who comes to stay. Like for instance the King of Cats, he ends up writing his wife so she do not get fat like a common kitchen cat. This book shows very good enthusiasm and comedy quotes.

Personal Reaction: This book was very interesting for me to actually catch on to. I did not find anything interesting about this book. The one thing that did stand out to me in this book was the very outstanding quotes that rhymes. Everyone loves a good book that rhymes every once in a while and this is the book for you.

Classroom Extinctions: 1.) I would ask the classroom do they like to listen to poems that rhyme.
2.) Then I would ask the students to write me a poem that rhymes.

Summary: This is a book of poem, mainly about animals,cats, tigers and a rabbit. Each poem has a William Blake title like" The wise Cow Enjoys A cloud." The cow is asked where did he sleep last night, where did he lay his head? Some of the poem like the cow one is rhyming, but a few of the are not.
Personal reaction: I would say this is one of those classic books of poems. The rhyming ones was fun. I did like some of the pictures, because they made it easy to understand the poem.
Extension: I would use this book in the classroom to teach on the different styles of poetry, and really use the pictures for examples for the younger ones to look at. I would also encourage the students to write poems that they can make up and call their on style.

Summary:
This collection of poems is inspired by William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience." The poems reflect Blake's imaginary inn and all of the unusual guests that come to stay.
Review:
Willard uses the genre of poetry when targeting the interests of travelers. William Blake and his inn is a common topic that many readers of the targeted age group are familiar with, and therefore they are able to hear this story through a different genre than it is usually portrayed. ( )

Inspired by William Blake's poetry, Nancy Willard creates an imaginary inn that Blake himself runs. With fantastic images accompanying them, her poems tell the stories of the travelers who visit the inn. Great allusions to Blake's Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence. ( )

Awesome introduction to William Blake's biography and his poetry! Although I do not teach this poet in my curriculum, I would love to share this with the British lit teachers who often express how Blake can be challenging. ( )

Summary: The rthymic patterns that are shown in this book bring the characters to life in Blake's Inn and all the guest who are apart of the inn. There are many animals in this story such as a dragon, a cat, a rabbit, and theres even a King of the Cats. the color markings used in this storya re different because they appear to be from the 18th century to represent the inn.
Personal Experience: It was great to read a story that had such an imagination and such a broad part of illustrations. Reflections from this time on the illustrations would help a child see the difference in the 18th cnetury and todays time.
Reflection: Have students draw their own "inn" with their name and imaginative characters. They could use painting/colors to represent the 18th century.

Wonderful Illustrations steal the show in this book of poems, animated by animals from Blakes own poems. ( )

Willard somehow manages to capture the ideal of William Blake without directly borrowing anything specific from his poems, that I could discern. (I didn't have Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience at my elbow, and probably should have.) Some reviewers indicate the poems are revisions of Blake's, others they are merely inspired by Blake's own. Cursory review indicates there are tigers and sunflowers in Blake poems, need to confirm anything more specific than that.

Reminiscent of Master Snickup's Cloak in that the immediate impression of weight or innovation can't be pinned down to anything in particular, but still I'm left thinking this is something pretty special. Though with Snickup, it was primarily the art work, and with Willard it's both her poetry and the Provensen's artwork.

Willard brings in whimsical animal characters, who interact and speak with people, but again, the effect is not so much Pooh or Seuss or Peter Pan ... more a Mona Lisa smile than a laugh or snicker. As of a world-weary adult reminding themselves of the importance of magic, and imagination. For example, a Tiger features throughout, with Tyger, tyger burning bright quoted in the forward, but nothing more is done to link them, apart from keeping the Tiger's antics from becoming overly quaint or cutesy.

Written longer ago than first I thought: 1981, winning Caldecott and Newbery awards for 1982. Perhaps recently reprinted as it surfaced more than once in the last year for me. ( )

Summary:
This book has an intro from the author and how she found out about William Blake which was through her babysitter at the age of seven. Nancy receives a little book in the mail titled Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake and that is the reason she became writing a collection of rhyming poems describing the entire life and events of William Blake.

Personal Reaction:
The pictures are just amazing and how each poem illustrates them very well so that the children can understand it clearly and better and I enjoyed this so much that it has been a favorite of mine especially for earning the Newberry and Caldecott award.

Classroom Extension:
1. The children can write their own rhyming poem about a specific event that happened in their life.
2. They can choose their most favorite poem individually and present it to the class why they liked it the best.

I was pleasantly surprised by the whimsical poetic take on William Blake and his poetry that Nancy Willard achieved in A Visit to William Blake's Inn. While the book captured the essence of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, "Tyger, Tyger, Burning bright...", Willard magically enhanced them for a child's introduction to those works with playful beasts, the poet as the master of majestic inn, and easily accessible poetry in four line stanzas with rhyming couplets.
For example:
Two mighty dragons brew and bake
and many are the loaves they've burned
and are the spits they've turned
and many those who stop and break
their joyful bread with William Blake.

The musical quality of Nancy Willard's poetry is delightful to read aloud and the illustrations that usually encompass the full two page layout are detailed water color line drawings which capture the dress and architecture of the romantic period. The book is rather long, forty-five pages, but Willard broke up individuals poems under pseudo (perhaps) chapter titles, thus giving the reader the ability to stop after one or at least to break up the book into shorter reading sessions.

What I find so interesting about this book and would use in the classroom, especially a high school one, is the way in which she was able to take a nearly two hundred year old, sometimes very complicated to understand poetry, and put them into a new format. The assignment: To take a poem (and everyone would have the same poem) and have to create a poem in response. The response could by translating the poem into modern english or rap, or creating a conversational response as Ralegh did to Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to his love. The assignment would not only force the students to examine the poem closely, it would also hopefully give them a sense that they were in control of it and thus alleviating any fear they have to reading or examining poems. Nancy Willard's A Visit to William Blake's Inn could stand as a wonderful example of one way to create a response - by making an assigned poem into a children's poem. ( )

Summary: Many poems, almost every poem refers to an animal in some way, either how an animal sounds, what it does, or what it is. Newbery award winner.

Personal reaction: I liked this book of poems. There are several different stories told through these poems.

Classroom extensions
1) Every child can write a poem and create a classroom poem book.
2) Read 1 poem at a time and draw pictures that we see in our minds as we read the different stories. ( )

This delightful collection of Romantic poems, revisions from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, are nonsense (or philosophy, in disguise!) sure to spark the imagination. Use this as an introduction to the traits of Romantic writing, including formal meter & rhyme, mood, and symbolism as well as intuition and the sublime. ( )

Summary
This book is filled with Poems about William Blake and his Inn. Which he runs and owns, he has two dragons that cook the food, and two angels that clean all the linens.

Personal Reaction
I really liked the book, the poems were all so magical and enchanting. I thought the pictures in the book were amazing even though they were older i thought they were perfectly fitting for the poems.

Classroom Extension
1. This poems are so Imaginative that i think they would be great to read to the class and have the children all illustrate a part of the poem.

2. you could also read the children a poem out of the book and have them all write their own somewhat like it.