Naomi Shihab Nye is an award-winning poet who has turned her hand to children's books--poetry anthologies, picture books, and young adult novels--which in one way or another deal with the idea of connections. In award-winning anthologies such as This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World, The Tree Is Older Than You Are: Bilingual Poems and Stories from Mexico, and The Space between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East, Nye has not only made poetry accessible to a younger audience, but has also introduced young readers to a bigger world than that encompassed by the walls of their schools. Compiling poems, short stories, and artwork from creative people around the world, she has attempted to open windows on the world, to build bridges between "us" and "them."

More than a simple tip of the hat toward fashionable multiculturalism, Nye's work has been...