To comfort children and adults everywhere, eighteen top picture book artists have each illustrated a poem for this magnificent keepsake volume. In September 2001, New York poetry anthologist Georgia Heard was asked to compile a collection of "poems of comfort" for schoolchildren in lower Manhattan. Soon afterward, Candlewick Press editors learned of the project and, believing that people everywhere could benefit from such a collection, approached a number of well-known artists to ask if they would be interested in participating. Within weeks, no fewer than eighteen artists had agreed to volunteer their talents to illustrate one poem each. The result is this unprecedented volume of life-affirming verse that is as richly diverse as it is powerful, as beautiful as it is full of heart. From Emily Dickinson’s "Hope is the thing with feathers" to Langston Hughes’s "Hold on to dreams," from Walt Whitman to Georgia Heard herself, here is an outstanding selection of poets and poems, matched by a stellar array of artists whose collective work on these pages is truly spectacular.