The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost, Vivian Mineker (Illustrator)

Overview

For all of life's adventures comes The Road Not Taken, which The New York TimesBook Review calls "a book that begs rereading."

This beautifully illustrated companion is inspired by Robert Frost's perennial poem. Heartwarming illustrations of a young boy journeying through a yellow wood accompany the original text of the poem. When a fork in the road arises for the boy, so too does the first of life's many choices. And as the poem progresses, so does the boy's life: college, career, marriage, family, loss, and, by journey's end, the sweet satisfaction of a life fully lived. The first children's book ever made of Frost's famous poem, this moving presentation makes an inspiring gift for graduation, marriage, career moves, and all of life's exciting roads. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641701358
Publisher:	Familius
Publication date:	03/01/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
File size:	29 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Robert Frost is one of America's most beloved poets. Born in 1874 in San Francisco, California, he spent most of his life in rural New England. His poems frequently drew on his rural surroundings to teach deeper principles on life. Some of his most famous poems include "Mending Wall", "Birches", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Road Not Taken" featured in this book. By his passing in 1963, Frost had been awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry, received the Congressional Gold Medal, and been nominated thirty-one times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Vivian Mineker is a Taiwanese American illustrator from Taipei and Portland, OR, currently living in Slovenia. Her process usually starts with watercolor and colored pencils and finishes on the computer for fine details and adjustments.

Table of Contents

A List of Books by Robert Frost Robert Frost: An Appreciation The Poet's Invitation: The Pasture

1

The Tuft of Flowers
Blueberries
Home Burial
The Witch of Coös
Paul's Wife
Ghost House
At Woodward's Gardens
The Vindictives
Wild Grapes
The Code
The Bearer of Evil Tidings
The Fear
Snow

2

The Housekeeper
A Hundred Collars
The Star-Splitter
The Hill Wife

LONELINESS

HOUSE FEAR

THE SMILE

THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM

THE IMPULSE
The Telephone
Revelation
Going for Water
A Line-Storm Song
Willful Homing
Birches
Mowing
Mending Wall
The Mountain
Brown's Descent
The Vanishing Red
To the Thawing Wind
A Lone Striker
Two Tramps in Mud Time
Love and a Question
An Old Man's Winter Night
The Gum-Gatherer
The Investment
The Figure in the Doorway
To a Young Wretch
The Wood-Pile
The Death of a Hired Man

3

On Going Unnoticed
West-running Brook
A Patch of Old Snow
A Time to Talk
A Boundless Moment
Bereft
A Winter Eden
Hyla Brook
The Flower Boat
The Census-Taker
A Brook in the City
Evening in a Sugar Orchard
The Onset
Spring Pools
In a Disused Graveyard
Sand Dunes
TheBirthplace
For Once, Then, Something
A Serious Step Lightly Taken
Tree at My Window
Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

4

Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter
On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep
The Oven Bird
Our Singing Strength
A Minor Bird
Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same
A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury
A Drumlin Woodchuck
The White-tailed Hornet
Waspish
Departmental
Fireflies in the Garden
Design
Canis Major
Two Look at Two
The Cow in Apple Time
The Runaway
The Bear

5

The Hardship of Accounting
Not All There
The Wrights' Biplane
Precaution
In a Poem
It Bids Pretty Fair
parA Cloud Shadow
The Secret Sits

6

Choose Something Like a Star
Our Hold on the Planet
Happiness Makes Up in Height for What It Lacks in Length
Triple Bronze
I Could Give All to Time
My November Guest
Storm Fear
Wind and Window Flower
October
Good Hours
Pea Brush
I Will Sing You One-O
To Earthward
La Noche Triste
Song of the Wave
My Butterfly
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
The Sound of the Trees
In Hardwood Groves
Nothing Gold Can Stay
After Apple-Picking
The Grindstone
The Kitchen Chimney
Gathering Leaves
A Leaf Treader
A Hillside Thaw
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
A Passing Glimpse
Dust of Snow
Putting in the Seed
The Line-Gang
Fire and Ice
Riders
The Master Speed
The Gift Outright
A Considerable Speck
The Silken Tent
Good-bye and Keep Cold
A Prayer in Spring
Into My Own
Come In
The Road Not Taken

Index of First Lines Index of Titles

Editorial Reviews

02/18/2019

Golden, autumnal shades by Mineker mark Frost’s archetypal “wood,” as a red-haired child with a canine companion walks toward two roads that diverge. Seen from high above, the child resembles an abstract shape faced with the choice between two distinct paths. The boy’s choice leads to pivotal life moments: in one series of images, he grows older as he plays with tinker toys, then holds a book of architecture, then graduates from school. On another spread, chasing his still-spry dog leads him to meet his life partner, which lead to children, grandchildren, and old age. Mineker captures the poignancy and weight of Frost’s most well-known poem while delivering an accessible story of choices and personal journeys to young readers. Ages 5–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Of all the poetry written in our generation, Frost's is most likely to stand the test of time." —Lewis Gannett

"Of U.S. poets, none has lodged poems more surely where they will be hard to get rid of. . . . His lines often have the trenchancy and inevitability of folk sayings." —Time

"No other American poet has so much art or so much subject matter." —Mark Van Doren

"Frost was the first American who could be honestly reckoned a master-poet by world standards." —Robert Graves

From the Publisher

Robert Frost’s familiar 1915 poem presents enigmatic choices for an elementary-age boy.

A red-haired elementary-age boy trekking through golden woods with a beagle comes to a place where “two roads diverged.” Wishing he could “travel both,” the boy studies one road and then chooses the less-worn path, opting to keep the other road for “another day,” knowing he’s unlikely to “ever come back” and taking the road “less traveled by” could “make all the difference.” Richly hued illustrations in a palette of yellows and blues rely on simple rounded shapes, flat patterns, varying perspectives, and single- and double-page spreads to provide a possible context for Frost’s spare verse. Dwarfed by stylized trees resembling giant yellow toadstools, the boy begins his journey wearing a striped hoodie, blue backpack, jeans, and red boots. An impressive treetop view shows boy and beagle confronting the diverging path, emphasizing the magnitude of choice. The boy picks up fallen leaves, ponders two unknown roads, selects a leaf for his backpack, and proceeds along his chosen path. As he journeys, scenes from his ensuing life unfold, carrying him from childhood to becoming a young man with a family and eventually an elderly man, still musing about the choice he made in the woods that indeed changed everything. Inexplicably, his hair darkens from red to brown with a single page turn, which is likely to befuddle more than one reader.

A favorite Frost poem reveals how serendipitous choice affects a lifetime. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews