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DISCOVERY

Name: DISCOVERY
Author: Joseph Brodsky
ISBN: 0-374-31793-3

by Joseph Brodsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 1999

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Brodsky (for adults, On Grief and Reason, 1996, etc.) challenges the notion that a place—any place—can be truly “discovered” by humans, as if willed into being by their intents and designs. His poem is also, more quietly, a promise of wonder that the world holds in wait for those open to its charms. The book has a Genesis-like, Big-Bang beginning, when “there were just waves/hammering at the obstacles.” Clouds sent down rain, fish came, birds alighted on the new land, “yet they were just pilgrims, and very few/of them evolved into settlers.” By the time Europeans arrived, America was an old place. “They stepped ashore and they rode across/this land of milk and honey,/and they settled in with their many laws,/their cities, their farms, their money.” Although this is a picture book, with collage artwork from Radunsky that is fluent in its rude edges and construction-paper color, the text claims readers’ heed as it signals a gracious, elemental style: “When you are a continent, you don’t mince/words and don’t crave attention.” (Picture book/poetry. 6-10)

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1999

ISBN: 0-374-31793-3

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

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RELATIVELY SPEAKING

POEMS ABOUT FAMILY

by Ralph Fletcher ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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PLB 0-531-33141-5 In what amounts to a novel in poems, a narrator, 11, declares his satisfaction at “Being The Youngest,” introduces his big brother (“God’s Gift to Girls”), who later has a scary brush with death, watches his grandmother plant tulip bulbs “in that dirty confusion/of bulb and knuckle,/knuckle and bulb,” observes several relatives at a huge family reunion, tracks his mother’s pregnancy, and, after his sister is born, finds pleasure in “Being A Middle Child,” too. In easygoing free verse that hides no meanings behind oblique imagery or language, Fletcher (Ordinary Things, 1997, etc.) creates a close-knit, recognizable cast; Krudop’s small pen-and-ink still lifes of food and common household items evoke an air of intimate, everyday domesticity. Children will enjoy reading or listening to these linked episodes of high drama, low comedy, and comforting human contact. (Poetry. 8-10)

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-531-30141-9

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WORLD'S LONELIEST ELEPHANT
by Ralph Fletcher ; illustrated by Naoko Stoop

- BOOK REVIEW
MARSHFIELD MEMORIES
by Ralph Fletcher

- BOOK REVIEW
GUY-WRITE
by Ralph Fletcher

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HUMPTY DUMPTY?

AND OTHER SURPRISING SEQUELS TO MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES

by David T. Greenberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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Some silly variations on the fates of familiar nursery rhyme characters add cheap laughs to traditional Mother Goose tales. Greenberg proposes that after Humpty’s great fall, he almost became a giant omelet, but was accidentally splattered on the kitchen wall instead. Mother Goose and her gander “both went/up to heaven/After colliding with a/747!” Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife gets her revenge by sticking her husband in a loaf of bread. Sending up Mother Goose can be rewarding, but it’s never easy; the author, with little of the grace or beat of the originals, twists many tales with trendy, explicitly gross humor, e.g., Jack Spratt and his wife lick not only the platter clean, but a city bus, the dog’s nose, and a garbage truck. The illustrations, despite their giddiness, have a decidedly old-fashioned feel, demonstrating Schindler’s facility with nursery rhyme characterizations in finely inked cross-hatchings. (Picture book. 4-9)