Thirteen glorious paintings from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., caught the eye of poet Justine Rowden one day--works by Francisco de Goya, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Vuillard, Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko, and others. "How would a child respond to them? Rowden asked herself as she wrote a poem for each masterpiece. The colors of Sam Francis's painting "Speck stirred her to think of music, and to liken the hues to things in a child's world: Ziggidy, jiggidy colors / Jaggedy, zaggedy music / Maraschino-cherry reds / Chevy Blazer blues / Mustard yellows / Lime Jell-O greens. Vuillard stirred her to write: The ladies with hats that flatter / Don't permit cups to clatter / Nor tea to splatter / On silvery platters. With these poems, Rowden shows us that paintings don't need to be understood by children in an art-historyish way, and that when we stand back and let children react with abandon, their responses will amaze us. And their appreciation of art will soar. Her poems are sprightly, elliptical, sometimes silly, sometimes serious. They teach us that it's okay to simply bask in a painting's colors, or look at just one detail, or to daydream while gazing at it. Her poems capture a child's imaginings--they could have been written by a child.