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MOTHER POEMS

Name: MOTHER POEMS
Author: Hope Anita Smith
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8231-9

by Hope Anita Smith & illustrated by Hope Anita Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2009

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Having taken on the departure—and subsequent return—of a father in The Way a Door Closes (illustrated by Shane W. Evans, 2003) and Keeping the Night Watch (illustrated by E.B. Lewis, 2008), Smith turns to the loss of a mother. “[C]an’t nobody love me / like my momma do,” exults the narrator, a little girl at the opening of the book. Her mother is the center of her life, her stepfather notable only when he’s away and she can snuggle in bed with her mother. So when her mother dies, the now-preteen girl is a “motherless shell.” The raw emotion contained in these poems is undeniably visceral. But the unnamed narrator seems to exist in a vacuum; the glancing references to friends and relatives are not enough to answer readers’ natural questions about whom she lives with, how they help (or not) the grieving child—a curiosity after two such piercing looks at the effect of a loss on an entire family. The author supplies her own visual accompaniment, lovely torn-paper collages that complement but do not fill the gaps in the text. Beautiful but incomplete. (Poetry. 8-12)

Pub Date: April 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-8050-8231-9

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
IT RAINED WARM BREAD
by Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet & Hope Anita Smith ; illustrated by Lea Lyon

- BOOK REVIEW
MY DADDY RULES THE WORLD
by Hope Anita Smith ; illustrated by Hope Anita Smith

- BOOK REVIEW
KEEPING THE NIGHT WATCH
by Hope Anita Smith & illustrated by E.B. Lewis

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LAUGH WITH THE MOON

by Shana Burg ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 12, 2012

Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable...

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Melding the colors of heartache and loss with painterly strokes, Burg creates a vivid work of art about a girl grieving for her recently deceased mother against a Third World backdrop.

Clare is not speaking to her father. She has vowed never to speak to him again. Which could be tough, since the pair just touched down in Malawi. There, Clare finds herself struck by the contrast between American wealth and the relatively bare-bones existence of her new friends. Drowning in mourning and enraged at the emptiness of grief, Clare is a hurricane of early-adolescent emotions. Her anger toward her father crackles like lightning in the treetops. She finds purpose, though, in teaching English to the younger children, which leads her out of grief. Burg’s imagery shimmers. “The girl talks to her mother in a language that sounds like fireworks, full of bursts and pops. She holds her hand over her mouth giggling.... She probably has so many minutes with her mother, she can’t even count them.” Her realization of the setting and appreciation for the Malawian people are so successful that they compensate for Clare's wallowing, which sometimes feels contrived.

Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable disparities. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: June 12, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-385-73471-4

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

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REWIND

by William Sleator ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1999

Peter, an 11-year-old traffic fatality, finds himself looking down on his funeral as a voice offers him a do-over. He...

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Another ingenious but leaky story from Sleator (The Boxes, 1998, etc.), likely to leave readers more puzzled than intrigued.

Peter, an 11-year-old traffic fatality, finds himself looking down on his funeral as a voice offers him a do-over. He eagerly accepts, only to discover that the past has a stubborn momentum; he’s killed again, gets another chance, and blows that one, too. Convinced that the key to survival lies in winning the appreciation of his clueless, cold-hearted parents, Peter displays consideration by waiting hand and foot on his pregnant mother, creativity by putting on an elaborate puppet show to explain his feelings, and cleverness by predicting local events that haven’t yet happened, then contriving to shift the resulting public furor onto a bullying classmate. Apparently, all of this makes him a more thoughtful person, so his fatal attraction to passing automobiles ceases. The premise, with its echoes of many books and movies, will only be new to very inexperienced readers, but the cheerlessness of Peter’s home life gives the whole story a drab cast, and the internal logic seems more convenient than consistent. Sleator has a following, but he won’t win any new fans with this one. (Fiction. 10-12)