by David Davis
Where does our road go
up around the bend?
Does it circle kings and castles
before you reach the end?
Does it reach the land of tigers
and steaming jungle scenes?
Does it wind through snowy landscapes
beside icy frozen streams?
Does it climb down mountain passes
to green valleys far below?
Does it cross vast sunny deserts
where only camels go?
I watch the cars as they pass by,
but they aren’t rides for me.
When I’m grown, I’ll pack a lunch,
and then I’ll go and see.
Copyright © 2010 David Davis. From A Southern Child’s Garden of Verses. Pelican Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
When I was a boy I used to climb up to the tip top of the huge tree in our backyard where I could see to the edge of town where the “country” began. I wondered where that road would take me if I could travel to it all the way to the end. I loved watching explorer programs where folks visited far countries and dreamed of traveling to those exotic places when I grew up.
David Davis is an award-winning cartoonist and an accomplished writer and artist. His titles Jazz Cats and Ten Redneck Babies: A Southern Counting Book were named to the International Reading Association/Children’s Book Council Children’s Choices Top 100 Lists in 2002 and 2005, respectively. Jazz Cats earned additional accolades as a 2005 Texas Golden Spur Award nominee and an Accelerated Reader program selection. Davis is also the author of Pelican’s Redneck Night Before Christmas, Nurse’s Night Before Christmas, Librarian’s Night Before Christmas, Rock ‘n’ Roll Dogs, Texas Zeke and the Longhorn, Texas Aesop’s Fables, A Southern Child’s Garden of Verses, and The Twelve Days of Christmas—In Texas, That Is. Davis is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.