With 'The Dreamer,' Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis do justice to
Pablo Neruda: Young Readers  on April 06, 2010 at 7:01 AM,
updated April 06, 2010 at 11:40 AM  dreamer.jpgScholastic, 384
pp., $17.99, grades 4-8 There comes a moment -- in middle school
for the kids who gaze out the window, high school for the others
-- when a young person realizes that poetry is more than roses
and rhymes. It comes when hearts have grown enough to hold not
just strange new passions but the longing to express them.  No
one did it better than Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning
Chilean visionary who is among the most-read poets in history.
Many kids will shuffle through 12 grades and never interact with
Neruda's words, nor discover his line, "What did the tree learn
from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?" The way is
often blocked by a wall of closed minds and proficiency-test
preparations.  Pam Munoz Ryan's beautiful new book offers a most
magnificent ladder. "The Dreamer" tells the story of Neruda's
childhood.  Born N