Photos courtesy of Charles Ghigna.
Charles Ghigna is releasing a new collection of poetry later this month.
Charles Ghigna has a “new baby,” and it is beautiful, he said. All 128 pages of it.
Ghigna, a Homewood resident better known as the children’s author “Father Goose,” is set to release “The Father Goose Treasury of Poetry: 101 Favorite Poems for Children” on April 28.
“It really represents the best of my work,” Ghigna said.
The book comes with silver gilding, a blue ribbon bookmark, an index of subjects and illustrations by Italian artist Sara Brezzi.
The book helps students explore the “joy and wonder of nature,” Ghigna said. It will hopefully inspire readers to leave the screens behind and get into nature and recharge their batteries, he said. He said this collection includes some new poems as well as some of the best of his older poems. The book ends with poems about poetry itself, he said.
Ghigna said he gave Brezzi artistic and creative freedom in her American debut.
“My favorite illustrations are those … [which] bring their own heart and soul and eye,” he said.
Inspiration starts at home for Ghigna, who has published more than 100 books and an innumerable number of poems for children.
“I live in this 100-year old house,” Ghigna said. “I look out the window and dream.”
By the time Ghigna climbs the stairs to the attic where he writes, which he calls his “treehouse,” he says he’s wondering what he can “get into today.”
“I usually have more ideas to write about than I have time [to write],” he said.
Some poems come quickly, while others take more time, he said.
Ghigna has taught high school and college courses, and earlier in his career wrote adult poetry for The New Yorker and Harper’s. But when he fell in love with his future wife, Debra, on the campus of Birmingham-Southern College, he knew that the “serious, brooding poet” had to change.
“You need to lighten up,” she told him.
Ghigna said wives have a way of “bringing us back to Earth.”
Debra challenged him to write something everyone could relate to. The result was “Good Cats, Bad Cats, Good Dogs, Bad Dogs,” which led to a four-book contract with Disney.
And when Debra and Charles welcomed their son into the world, that challenge became easy to meet, he said.
“It was like the floodgates had opened,” he said.
Ghigna took the poetry he began writing for his son and “tested” it on school children, to much success.
Reading opens doors for children, he said.
“Every time they open a book … it’s like someone just handed you a magic carpet,” Ghigna said. “Once a child learns to read, the world is theirs.”
Reading leads to writing, which is just another way of talking, Ghigna said. His writing has allowed him to experience some of the magic he’s created for children.
“When you become an author, your books will literally become little magic carpets,” he said.
Living in Homewood has been like living in a “storybook town,” he said.
“A sense of place has meant everything to me,” Ghigna said.
Ghigna lives in Edgewood, with oak trees hanging over sidewalks.
“I feel lucky every day,” he said. “Every block has someone making art in some way.”
Homewood will also be host to Ghigna’s first signing, set for April 27 at The Alabama Booksmith.
The book can be found at local booksellers, Amazon and more.
