As more than one critic has noted, the nonsensical spirit of these verses seems to owe more to such poets as Lewis Carroll (a childhood favorite of Willard's), W. S. Gilbert, and Edward Lear than to the often dark and complex Blake. Nonetheless, the book's preface, expanded by Willard's subsequent acceptance speech at the Newbery Medal award ceremonies, makes it clear that ever since a babysitter gave her a volume of Blake's poetry when she was seven years old, the poet has been much on her mind. Willard reports that she began building a model of an old country inn from scraps of cardboard some years before she decided to write a book of poems featuring Blake. Willard often listened to recordings of Blake's poetry as she constructed the inn in her living room, and such.....
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