A powerful grouping of thought-provoking poems and brilliantly designed paintings.
Enslaved African-Americans voice the weariness, drudgery, agony and dreams of their lives in a beautiful and informative collection of poetry and paintings.
In her debut title, Grady structures free verse to mirror the patterns of traditional American quilt blocks, variations on a square. In the poems, each 10 lines with 10 syllables per line, the words and thoughts read seamlessly and build to heart-rending finales. They speak of daily lives made bearable by the words of a preacher, the joys of singing and the quiet rhythms of stitching. A woman bent over her basket of scraps can see her “troubles fall / away.” A man calming a horse can find a “patchwork field of freedom.” Children outside a school building scratch out the alphabet because “[i]t gives us hope; it sings us home.” Each poem is accompanied by brief background information on slavery and on the quilt-block pattern that inspired it. Full-page paintings by Wood, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner, pulsate with vibrant colors and intensity. Each incorporates the quilt pattern that served as Grady’s inspiration into a collage-styled portrait. Readers will find themselves poring over the many details in the art and connecting them with the verses.
A powerful grouping of thought-provoking poems and brilliantly designed paintings. (author’s note, illustrator’s note, bibliography) (Poetry. 10 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5386-8
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, age-appropriate, and convincing portrayal of family resilience after trauma.
Fleeing domestic abuse, a girl and her family begin a hard but hopeful journey to healing.
Eleven-year-old Lacey is shocked that Mama has called the police to take them, along with Lacey’s 4-year-old sister, Jenna, to safety—and unhappy at leaving the family dog behind. The girls are fearful and confused; Daddy’s rules prohibit leaving the house without him. Though he is put in jail, feeling safe will take time. Moving to transitional housing brings challenges. Lacey, home-schooled, has never had a friend. Daddy’s control over the family was absolute even when he wasn’t home to enforce it. Now Mama must learn to make her own decisions. Initially, Lacey misses Daddy’s rules, terrifying but known; she’s anxious at having new rules to follow, though breaking her father’s rules doesn’t bring retribution. With community help and support, the three timidly expand into their new life. Mama revives her artistic ambitions and, gaining strength, nurtures her daughters’ artistic gifts. Reading about Rachel Carson, Lacey finds life lessons in the natural world: observing how a sunflower grows from a seed and how a winding creek finds its own way. Lowell, who in an author’s note describes herself as a domestic-abuse survivor, focuses here on healing; the abuse is portrayed retrospectively—fitting, given her audience. Like her gentle illustrations, the verse format suits her story, a mosaic of small epiphanies that cumulatively chart a path from darkness into light. Characters’ race and ethnicities aren’t described explicitly.
A moving, age-appropriate, and convincing portrayal of family resilience after trauma. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-10961-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PROFILES
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
