Two intriguing stories that make sense individually but don’t quite work when combined into one book.
Peña and Peña, in their debut, introduce readers to Windy Wendy in two children’s stories—one a creation myth of the alphabet, the other a suspense tale.
The first story takes place at the first Worldwide Congress, Parade, and Festival of Letters, where the letter Z is feeling a little left out. “It’s not fair that we…are always the last letters to appear,” the letter says. “By the time we appear, most of the children are already sleeping or gone.” But why are they last? It’s all due to a wind named Windy Wendy, who blew her breeze upon the world until letters spontaneously appeared; Z brought up the rear, just as Wendy was falling asleep from exhaustion. Z’s pleas to change up the order of the alphabet are ignored, and the other letters want to punish Z for its demands. However, when Windy Wendy appears at the Congress and starts whooshing once again, Z alerts the other letters about what’s happening. In the second story, Wendy’s cousin and school friends are intrigued about an abandoned house. Legend has it that “anyone able to get in would gain all the knowledge and power of the world.” But such an attempt would be risky, and Wendy, as the voice of reason, urges them all not to do it. The ominous story continues: “They didn’t listen to Wendy, and then the wind came for them. None of them would be seen ever again.” The scene then jumps 20 years into the future, as an adult named Wendy Veronica Williams prepares to accept an award for a book she wrote about her childhood friends. The multiple Wendy characters will help young readers link the two stories, which are both imaginative and suspenseful. However, the Wendys don’t factor into the stories’ main action until near their conclusions. Overall, the two stories don’t fit together very well; one is a simple story about the creation of the alphabet, while the other is a scary story with a cliffhanger. As a result, it may be confusing to read them back to back.
Two intriguing stories that make sense individually but don’t quite work when combined into one book.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491249048
Page Count: 46
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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