I think practically all members of families except the dog or the cat will want to read ["Family Reunion"], and having read it, will want to meet the author. There may be deeper American poets—though this book is very wise—but surely there cannot be more completely beguiling ones. It is almost a pity that Ogden Nash is most famous for his ingenuity with grace-note rhymes, subtle manhandlings of words so that they are made to fit as rhymes where Webster had not so intended. For his gifts as a poet and a wit are far wider and more various than adroit off-center rhymes. He manages to make the ideas, the foibles, the little vanities, the big issues of our time, even, sing cheerfully in dancing verse.

In this book of poems selected for their bearing on family life there is so much of tenderness, liveliness, insight...