If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility

Reviewed by David Austin

December 1, 2025

Selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, illustrated by Olivia Sua. Candlewick Press, 2025. 64 pages. $19.99/hardcover or eBook. Recommended for ages 7–10.

Once upon a time, the editors of this interesting and inspiring anthology put out an open call on social media for poems for young readers. Nearly 400 submissions and what I’m sure was a lot of reading and contemplation later, they settled on the 30 poems in the book. The collection features a variety of poems—from previously unpublished poets all the way to a selection by Emily Dickinson.

The collection is divided into four sections. The first consists of poems about the “everyday magic” in ordinary things, such as a pencil, a firefly, or even a rock. “The Power of You” is made up of poems which deal with the concept of “if,” as in, what might happen if . . . ? This is where we find Dickinson’s contribution: “If I can stop one Heart from breaking.” The section “Kinfolk and Companions” consists of poems about community, family, and the power found in groups. And finally, “Anything Is Possible.”

I enjoyed reading all the pieces in this collection. However, there’s one poem that stood out to me as a Friend, and I believe it represents the tone of the whole book: “If We Listen” by Joseph Bruchac, a storyteller who writes about Indigenous peoples. The first two stanzas suggest listening to the birds and our elders for wisdom; it ends:

Look to the light.
You are not alone.

Listen to the birds,
to the bright life
all around,
and you may find
your own hymn.

Olivia Sua’s beautiful cut-paper and painted-mosaic illustrations for each of these poems are like poems themselves: seemingly simple, yet complicated at the same time, and they match this collection perfectly.

These “poems of possibility” are all about asking the question, “What if . . . ?” What if we allow our imaginations to run free? What if we allow ourselves to dream without limiting those dreams to what might be allowed and instead dream about what can be? The poems in If I Could Choose a Best Day pose those questions and more, and in doing so, the editors have given us more than a set of clever and thoughtful poems. They’ve opened the door to a conversation that’s definitely worth having.

David Austin is a member of Medford (N.J.) Meeting, and he lives in Marlton, N.J. He is a retired teacher. His middle-grade novel in verse recounting the true story of a Holocaust survivor, Small Miracle: A Holocaust Story from France, is available from Fernwood Press.