Author Website
Where else can you find my books? My Website, Gibson’s Bookstore (Concord), MainStreet BookEnds (Warner), Innisfree Bookshop (Meredith/Laconia), G. Willikers, (Portsmouth), Water Street Books (Exeter)
Matt Forrest Esenwine
As a former radio broadcaster, Matt Forrest Esenwine spent a good part of his life writing and producing commercials, comedy bits, and news stories. He also wrote poetry, which was published in various national journals and anthologies including the Donald Hall tribute “Except for Love” (Encircle, 2019). Little did Matt know all this short-form writing would lead to his debut picture book, “Flashlight Night” (Astra Young Readers, 2017), which received numerous positive reviews including a Kirkus star, was selected as one of New York Public Library’s Best Books for Kids 2017, and even showed up on Encyclopedia Britannica’s list of ’11 Children’s Books That Inspire Imagination.”’
Matt now has more than a dozen children’s books to his credit including the 2026 NCTE Notable “A Universe of Rainbows” (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2025; “I Am Today” (POW! Kids Books, 2022), recipient of the 2023 NH State Literary Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature; and “Once Upon Another Time” (Beaming Books, 2021), co-authored with Charles Ghigna (aka, Father Goose®), a book ALA’s ‘Booklist’ called “a necessary addition to picture book collections.”
Meanwhile, his children’s poetry can be found in anthologies like “The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry” (National Geographic Kids Books, 2015), Construction People (Wordsong, 2020), “The Mistakes that Made Us” (Carolrhoda, 2024), and many others. Matt lives in NH with his wife, kids, and more pets than he has fingers, so don’t ask him to count. Connect with Matt and order personally-signed books at MattForrest.com.
Books
Flashlight Night
A Universe of Rainbows
2026 NCTE Notable Children’s Poetry Book
Rainbows in all their glory are celebrated in this STEAM-filled poetry collection from an all-star roster of children’s poets. Perfect for Poetry Month and Earth Day.
What do Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring, Peru’s Vinicunca mountain, the star Betelgeuse, and a drop of water have in common? Rainbows! In this iridescent collection, Nikki Grimes, Irene Latham, Joyce Sidman, Janet Wong, and sixteen other poets explore bursts of color across nature.
Each selection explores a new rainbow―and not just the ones in the sky. In haiku, free verse, and other forms, the poets capture marvels like crystals, pilot glories, Gouldian finches, and marble caves. Acclaimed illustrator Jamey Christoph brings each rainbow to life in brilliant color and playful detail.
Informational sidebars flank each poem, offering scientific context for readers, and recommended resources and a glossary are also included. Part of Eerdmans’ Spectacular STEAM for Curious Readers series.
Poems by:
Nikki Grimes
Matt Forrest Esenwine
Renee M. LaTulippe
Joyce Sidman
Irene Latham
David L. Harrison
Heidi E. Y. Stemple & Jane Yolen
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Alma Flor Ada & F. Isabel Campoy
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Marilyn Singer
Charles Waters
Laura Purdie Salas
Charles Ghigna
Lee Wardlaw
Janet Wong
Allan Wolf
Georgia Heard
The Thing to Remember about Stargazing
A picture-book ode to stargazing with an underlying message of awe for the wonders of nature.
What is the most important thing to remember about stargazing? When to do it, who to do it with, what to look for? It’s none of those! This picture book’s spare, lyrical text offers many possible ways to do stargazing: with a friend, with family, or alone; on a moonless night, or with a full moon, or even with some clouds; on the beach, lying in the grass, or standing on a snowy hill. There is only one rule of stargazing, which is saved for the end, and that is just to do it! Magical illustrations show polar bears, whales, and other animals stargazing too, and in the final illustration, diverse kids and animals gaze at the night sky together. Back matter about the constellations completes this bedtime story with its underlying message of love and respect for nature. color throughout.
Tractor Dance
From the crickets and frogs, to the cats and dogs—everyone is invited to the barnyard hoedown! With banjos strumming and accordions humming, the big farm machines can’t help but dance the night away! Children will delight in the late-night rhythmic antics of their beloved farm machines, like the plow who loves to polka and the tractor doing a jig.
Tractor Dance is a warm and light-hearted story that merges the worlds of farm equipment and music and dance. Charming illustrations infuse delightful personalities in every baler, combine and backhoe. The story offers a new and refreshing angle to these big machines that spawn so much curiosity and interest in young children. It’s a story both parents and children will reach for again and again—cozying up together for a short bedtime story and tuning in to their favorite farm machine melody.
Don't Ask a Dinosaur
Don’t Ask a Dinosaur is about a party that goes wildly awry when a pack of dinosaurs with very unique physical attributes attempt to help set up.
Written in a masterfully-executed rhyme, the book presents a cavalcade of lesser-known dinos and pairs their odd characteristics with little tasks that are hilariously impossible because of those features. “Don’t ask Deinocheirus to set the forks and spoons,” because his hands were enormous, “Therizinosaurus cannot blow up balloons,” because he had very long claws. In the end they find the one thing everyone can help do is to blow out the candles on the cake…but will it create yet another mess?
I Am Today
A young girl realizes that she doesn’t have to wait until she’s grown-up to stand up for what is right and make a big impact.
While playing on the beach in her coastal town, a young girl comes across a sea turtle ensnared by a wire. Her town is home to a factory that has provided jobs for many of her neighbors, including her mother, but it has also been dumping garbage from a pipe into the waters, threatening the creatures that live in them.
Children are used to being asked what they’ll do and be when they grow up, but the girl knows there is so much she can do today to help. Unable to forget the sight of the struggling turtle, with a fantastic act she inspires the townspeople to compel the factory to change its destructive ways.
Written in spare and evocative poetry, I Am Today is an empowering story for children who want to be the change the world needs.