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BRUSHING MOM’S HAIR

Name: BRUSHING MOM’S HAIR
Author: Andrea Cheng
ISBN: 978-1-59078-599-7

by Andrea Cheng and illustrated by Nicole Wong ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2009

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Based on Cheng’s experience, this candid story sensitively explores a teenager’s emotions as she copes with her mother’s illness and recovery during treatments for breast cancer. Writing in free verse, Ann is just shy of 15 when her mother is diagnosed. Backed by a loving and supportive family, Ann goes about her daily life, yet everything is permeated by the thought of her mother’s illness. She has difficulty talking about it to friends: “I don’t say, / My mom / had both her breasts cut off / and now she has stitches / covered by bandages / where they were.” Instead, Ann copes by immersing herself in ballet. The author never shies from sharing the gritty details, from cleaning the tubes with bulbs attached “like turkey basters” where her breasts use to be, to hair loss, fainting and chemo treatments, all the while realistically conveying Ann’s fears and uncertainty. Wong’s delicate black-and-white sketches that grace each poem make Ann look somewhat younger than 15. As a result, this slim volume is likely to appeal to a correspondingly younger audience. Worthy and moving. (Fiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-59078-599-7

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
BEES IN THE CITY
by Andrea Cheng ; illustrated by Sarah McMenemy

- BOOK REVIEW
THE YEAR OF THE GARDEN
by Andrea Cheng ; illustrated by Patrice Barton

- BOOK REVIEW
THE YEAR OF THE THREE SISTERS
by Andrea Cheng ; illustrated by Patrice Barton

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POETRY COMICS

by Grant Snider ; illustrated by Grant Snider ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 2024

Personal but personable, too, with glints of quiet humor.

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In a wryly introspective vein, a cartoonist offers a four-season round of illustrated observations on topics as varied as clouds, school, and the search for a perfect pumpkin.

“I want to put down / on paper the feeling / of fresh possibilities,” Snider writes in his “Spring” section. With reflections on the tricky art of writing poems serving as a thematic refrain, he goes on in a seasonal cycle to explorations of nature (“How do the birds / decide where / to alight?”), indoor activities (“In wool socks on thick carpet / I am MR. ELECTRIC”), and common experiences, from loading up a gigantic backpack with new books for the first day of school to waiting…and waiting…and waiting for a bus in the rain. He also invites readers to consider broad ideas, such as the rewards of practicing and the notion that failure can lead to the realization that “I’m still a work in progress.” Snider writes mostly in free verse but does break into rhyme now and then for the odd sonic grace note. Though he identifies only one entry as an actual haiku, his tersely expressed thoughts evoke that form throughout. His art is commensurately spare, with depictions of slender, dot-eyed, olive-skinned figures, generally solitary and of indeterminate age, posing balletically in, mostly, squared-off sequential panels making up mini-narratives of one to three pages.

Personal but personable, too, with glints of quiet humor. (Graphic poetry. 10-13)

Pub Date: March 26, 2024

ISBN: 9781797219653

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024

Categories:

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
NOTHING EVER HAPPENS ON A GRAY DAY
by Grant Snider ; illustrated by Grant Snider

- BOOK REVIEW
ONE BOY WATCHING
by Grant Snider ; illustrated by Grant Snider

- BOOK REVIEW
BLUE FLOATS AWAY
by Travis Jonker ; illustrated by Grant Snider

- PERSPECTIVES
National Poetry Month: It’s for Young Readers, Too

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HERE COMES MOTHER GOOSE

edited by Iona Opie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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This oversized companion to the much ballyhooed My Very First Mother Goose (1996) will take toddlers and ex-toddlers deeper into the playscapes of the language, to meet Old King Cole, Old Mother Hubbard, and Dusty Bill From Vinegar Hill; to caper about the mulberry bush, polka with My Aunt Jane, and dance by the light of the moon. Mixing occasional humans into her furred and feathered cast, Wells creates a series of visual scenarios featuring anywhere from one big figure, often dirty or mussed, to every single cat on the road to St. Ives (over a thousand). Opie cuts longer rhymes down to two or three verses, and essays a sly bit of social commentary by switching the answers to what little girls and boys are made of. Though Wells drops the ball with this last, legitimizing the boys’ presence in a kitchen by dressing them as chefs, in general the book is plainly the work of a match made in heaven, and merits as much popularity as its predecessor. (Folklore. 1-6)