Read it; gift it; use it to challenge, protect, and grow.
Poets Browne (Black Girl Magic, illustrated by Jess X. Snow, 2018), Acevedo (The Poet X, 2018), and Gatwood (Life of the Party, 2019) team up to offer a collection that calls young readers to awareness and justice.
Browne’s introduction explains what it means to be woke—“aware of your surroundings”—and connects this awareness to historical movements for justice, stating, “this is where our freedom begins.” The poems are assigned subject headings located next to the page numbers, in nearly alphabetical order, for easy access when flipping through this slim volume for inspiration. Some poems cover quiet topics that nourish individuals and relationships, such as body positivity, forgiveness, individuality, and volunteerism. Other poems are louder, calling for lifted voices. In “Activism, Everywhere,” Browne writes, “It is resisting to be comfortable / When we all have yet to feel safe and free”; her protest poem, titled “Right To, After Claude McKay,” powerfully echoes McKay’s historic verses while reversing the premise: “If we must live, let it not be in silence.” A resistance poem by Acevedo urges readers to “Rock the Boat,” and Gatwood’s poem on privilege asks, “What’s in My Toolbox?” Identity issues are covered too, with poems on disability, gender, immigration, and intersectionality. Each of the 24 poems is an irresistible invitation to take up space in community and in society, and each is eminently recitable, taking its own place in the spoken-word tradition. Taylor’s bold and colorful illustrations complement the poems without distracting from their power; Jason Reynolds contributes a foreword.
Read it; gift it; use it to challenge, protect, and grow. (Picture book/poetry. 8-18)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-31120-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Fresh off his engaging Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys (illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds, 2010) and inspired by the work of Andrew Russ, Raczka continues to dabble in short lyric forms, here experimenting with images conjured up by breaking down a single word. The smaller components that comprise the subsequent free-verse poem read left to right, cascading down the page while maintaining the same horizontal letter positions as in the original word. For example, “vacation” yields “ac tion / i n / a / va n,” alongside Doniger’s spare three-color drawing of a family and a rabbit traveling through the countryside in a van with a canoe on the roof. For readers who find the spatiality of the lettering a challenge for comprehension, Raczka sets the poem in more standard format, “vacation / action / in / a / van,” on the following page. While these 22 poems are uniformly clever, some, like “earthworms”—“a / short / storm / worms / here / worms / there / wear / shoes”—are more successful than others, such as “flowers”—“we slow / for / free / wows”—both in their playfulness and in evoking the suggestive depths of language. Fun as a prompt for poetic exploration but less fulfilling as a stand-alone volume. (Poetry. 8-12)
Pub Date: March 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-541-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
Striking photographs of birds that might be seen in the eastern United States illustrate this new collection of 14 poems in varied forms. From bald eagle to marbled godwit, the range is wide. It includes familiar feeder birds like chickadees, birds of ponds and shores like wood ducks, hooded mergansers and sandpipers, as well as less-common birds like the great horned owl, rufous-sided towhee and cedar waxwings. Semple's splendid photographs show birds in the wild—flying, perched in trees or on slender reeds, running along the sand and even bunched on a boardwalk. The colors are true, and the details sharp; careful focus and composition make the birds the center of attention. Yolen’s poems comment on these birds’ appearances and their curious actions. An eastern kingbird is "a ninja of the air," and “...oystercatchers, unafraid, / Continue on their stiff parade.” The mockingbird’s “Threesome Haiku” matches his triple repetition of the tune he mocks. Some of the poetry limps, making an easy point rather than enlarging the reader’s understanding, but some is memorable. Perhaps most effective is the rhythmic “Terns Galore”: "Turning terns are all returning / There upon the shore." Short sidebars add interesting, informative details about each species and Donald Kroodsma, a well-known ornithologist, has added a short foreword. This is a welcome companion to A Mirror to Nature and An Egret’s Day (both 2009). (Informational poetry. 8-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59078-830-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
© Copyright 2025 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.
