Nine-year-old Callula Xu is a born storyteller. Her "Juvenile Poems" however, are not at all childish. Written in free-verse style, her stories display a surprisingly adult perspective. The poems are not about her own experience, Callula explains, but are in the words of individuals she has tried to imagine. And what an imagination she has, stimulated by her own wide reading. Her characters are sometimes human-contemporary or from mythological realms of old-but also are animals, monsters, even zombies, who speak in the poems. As a result, this is not a children"s book. Adult readers will be surprised, perhaps shocked at times, by the thoughts and actions of these mostly unnamed beings as they recount events of their often troubled lives. Certainly we wish a better future in our own century for this talented young writer. -Virginia Hearn, author of What They Did Right: Reflections on Parents by Their Children (Tyndale & Coverdale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL & London, England)