Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems was published by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1978, with illustrations by Diane and Leo Dillon, and immediately established itself as one of the essential poetry collections for children. The sixteen poems are written from the perspective of a young Black girl and celebrate the ordinary pleasures and intense emotions of childhood — riding in the back seat of a car, playing with a best friend, watching her mother dance, feeling the particular love that exists between family members.
Greenfield’s achievement is to write poems that are genuinely simple — accessible to very young readers — without being simplistic. The rhythms are drawn from Black oral tradition: call-and-response patterns, jump-rope cadences, the rhythms of gospel and blues. The language is colloquial and warm, with a musical quality that makes the poems irresistible to read aloud. But beneath the accessibility is emotional precision: these poems know exactly what childhood feels like, and they honor children’s feelings as real and important.
The title poem has been anthologized hundreds of times and remains one of the most-recited poems in American elementary schools. The collection as a whole was revolutionary in its simple assertion that Black children’s experiences — their loves, their joys, their everyday lives — were worthy subjects for poetry, at a time when children’s literature still overwhelmingly centered white experience.
Collecting Honey, I Love
First edition (Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1978): Hardcover with dust jacket, illustrations by Diane and Leo Dillon.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $40–$100
- Later printings: $5–$15