Readers willing to pick and choose will find some gems, but there are a few rocks as well
Learning to read, wanting to read, daring to read—nearly every state of mastering the word is explored in VanDerwater’s collection of 23 poems.
Bookless? No worries. Cereal boxes, road signs, or even wildly decorated notebook paper can fill the bill for the greedy page gobbler. But if you happen to have a book…ahhhh, the sublime delight of reading under the covers way past dark (just like mom did) is unsurpassed. “She taught me how / a story leaps / like magic / from each page. / I’m sure my mom / read past her bedtime / under blankets / at my age.” However, in this inconsistent collection, the meter alternately flows, leaps, limps, and stutters. An achingly sweet poem about a child mourning her grandma while holding fast to the lessons learned in Charlotte’s Web is two back flips away from a pedestrian ode to hawks. “I am nestled on my couch / field guide perched upon my lap. / I am learning names of hawks / that own the never-ending sky.” O’Rourke’s illustrations are also uneven in quality. The oddly flat expression in “I Explore” vies with both the poignant father/daughter tableau in “Stories” and the comically imperious countenance of rodent Cleopatra in “Googling Guinea Pigs.” Overall, these poems lack the organic integrity and easy lyric harmony found in VanDerwater’s earlier books: Forest Has a Song, illustrated by Robbin Gourley (2013), and Every Day Birds, illustrated by Dylan Metrano (2016).
Readers willing to pick and choose will find some gems, but there are a few rocks as well . (Picture book/poetry. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59078-975-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
The more engaging musical version is available separately through iTunes and other distributors. You won’t hear the typos.
Purposeful and saccharine-sweet, these poems on religious and secular topics take on new life on the accompanying CD.
Wharnsby, a musician, has an appealing folk style, but the poetry on the page sounds forced and often trite. To interest young children in diversity, he writes such lines as “People are a lot like candy! / There’re [sic] all so different and dandy.” Describing “Piles of Smiles” that have been hidden away, he laments: “Someone misplaced the key, / causing global tragedy.” The poems range from the personal “I had a Chirpy Chick,” in which the narrator focuses on love for a pet and love for her grandmother, to a didactic poem entitled “The Mosque.” Typographical mistakes abound, with the use of “their” for “they’re” in the poem “Prayer” and in the example above, among others. Vibrantly colored flowers and plants, echoed in the handsome prayer rugs that illustrate “Prayer,” curl their way around multiracial children and adults. Most adult women wear hijab, as do some girls. With more and more Muslim families in North American communities, there is certainly a need for books of this type. Unfortunately, as with much other religious poetry collections for children, the message takes precedence over the words.
The more engaging musical version is available separately through iTunes and other distributors. You won’t hear the typos. (Poetry. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-86037-444-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Kube Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Welcome, heart-gladdening poems that never come amiss.
Prelutsky is back to make your day better, even if it’s already a good one.
Here come 103 more poems from the master of silliness; the guy must dream in poetry, his output is so steady and strong. And he is everywhere in the poetic world. He tackles grief—a young gent on the afternoon his hamster died: “It was a poor, unpleasant pet / That I should probably forget. / It never had a proper name… / I miss it deeply, all the same.” He introduces a disarmingly honest goblin—“I have an awful odor, / An unattractive voice. / I’m nasty and annoying / By nature and by choice.” He effortlessly turns a haiku conundrum: “All evening I sing, / Happy on a lily pad, / Celebrating spring.” He hands readers new words, little gems, for them to play with—“easy to abhor” or “Some unsavory subterfuge”—or lets them watch as he turns a world on its head: “…I thought I made an error once— / But I was just mistaken.” Urbanovic’s black-and-white artwork displays a comfortably free hand, roving between loose and scrunched as it depicts Prelutsky’s vast company of players: Gludus, Wiguanas, Appleopards and Flamingoats.
Welcome, heart-gladdening poems that never come amiss. (index) (Poetry. 5-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-201457-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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