1. Locate a volume of Blake's poetry and compare some of his poems with Willard's. For example, compare Willard's "The Tiger Asks Blake for a Bedtime Story" to Blake's own "The Tyger" (1794).

2. In a similar vein, read James Daughterty's biographical novel for young adults, William Blake (1960). How does the "real" Blake in that biography compare to Willard's Blake?

3. Willard draws her subtitle for this book from two collections of Blake's poetry, Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794). Review poems from these collections. Which one is closer in tone, content, and spirit to Willard's book? Is there a sense in which Willard's subtitle is misleading?

4. Blake has a reputation as a complex poet. Generations of readers and critics often have found him extraordinarily difficult to understand. Clearly, then, Willard's delight in Blake's poetry grows out of something other than his intellectual...