In a series of free-verse observations, a child tracks a year’s changes in her extended family through episodes in her grandparents’ garden. Along with routine chores, the year brings changes large and small, from a cousin’s pierced new boyfriend (still, promisingly, around the following spring), to an older aunt’s brief, disastrous driving lesson, a new job for Dad, a new baby, and a wedding. Despite holding enough plot for a novel, the poems seem as spacious as the well-tended setting, and Spinelli’s language frequently takes flight. Responding to an ominous forecast on that wedding day, Grandpa “waves the weather-words away. / He tweaks my cheek. ‘Think sun,’ he says. / ‘Think sun.’ / And sun it is the whole sweet day. / The whole sweet day.” Though she’s evidently never seen a crocus, Ramsey offers busy but not overcrowded scenes featuring a multigenerational cast of generally, but not invariably amicable folk, working, playing, or just hanging out together in a succession of seasons. By the end, readers will feel like members of this engaging family. (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-82666-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
Gollub (Uncle Snake, 1996, etc.) translates 33 of Issa's more than 20,000 haiku, intersperses them through a short biography, and caps it all with an explanation of some of the poems' less obvious images. With the Japanese originals running decoratively along their margins, Stone's appealing formal paintings illustrate the poems literally: children in traditional dress stand with their mouths up and open as "Mouth-watering snowflakes fall/lightly, lightly,/heaven's snack," and green melons in a basket do "turn to frogs!/If people come near." Gollub explains that the haiku are not presented chronologically, so any connections between them and specific incidents in Issa's troubled life are speculative. Nevertheless, readers will get a glimpse of the poet's extraordinary range of subject and feeling, as well as cogent instruction in how to read and understand these deceptively simple verses. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1998
ISBN: 1-880000-71-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
A collection of 16 poems, in picture-book format, by the well-respected poet and anthologist examines the journey in its broadest form—the outward, the inner, the metaphorical, as well as journeys in time and space. The poems vary in their accessibility and the addition of one of Nye’s memorable Forwards might have brought clarity to a group of poems that are intrinsically elusive (The Space Between Our Footsteps, 1998, etc.). Many are abstract and mysterious, full of subtle, teasing ideas to turn over in the mind. Pondering and reflecting are invited and required. One of the most accessible and successful is “Mad,” which fixes on the universal tension in the mother-daughter relationship, beginning: “I got mad at my mother / so I flew to the moon,” and ends “My mother sent up a silver thread / for me to slide down on. / She knows me so well. / She knows I like silver.” Although the poems are somewhat somber in tone, they are filled with a calm strength and a quiet sense of wonder when read aloud. Reading aloud also underscores the ineluctability of each perfectly chosen word. The small detail of page numbers placed on small torn pieces of map and the art’s strong linearity are appropriate to the journey theme. However, the collage and mixed-media illustrations fail to extend the text and threaten to overwhelm the delicate mood set by the quiet words and insinuated ideas. The saturated palette, strong line showing hasty brush strokes and the bold composition seem at odds with the poet’s rather pensive intent. But when Nye issues an invitation, “Come with me / To the quiet between two noisy minutes . . .” it is always worth the trip. (Nonfiction/Poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-15946-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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