A mixed bag thematically but a delicious collection nevertheless. (Picture book/poetry. 6-11)
An eclectic collection of recipes—not for cooking but for life.
Employing myriad forms—from traditional sonnets to syncopated free verse—Singer hopscotches from themes revealing commonalities among food, recipes, and poetry to broader, kid-friendly treatments of nature, reading, and social studies. The collection starts with a definition: “What’s in a good recipe? / Something right for me and you / Steps to follow, A to Z.” Another poem draws parallels between writing and cooking: “Sometimes you must follow things strictly word for word. / Sometimes it’s more lively if you improvise.” A cluster of haiku becomes a guide to enjoying the seasons: “Pomegranate seeds: / In fall, I am rich enough / to dine on rubies.” Another poem muses on memories: “Sometimes it’s just a sharp whiff of mustard, / and you recall being at the ballpark.” Toward the end of the book, poems grow increasingly sophisticated, offering recipes for courage and understanding. Priceman’s playful combination of collage, printmaking, and energetic brush strokes evokes the offbeat nostalgia of a grandma’s recipe box. Her inclusion of a multiracial cast is commendable. While most of the poems tickle the imagination and roll smoothly off the tongue, a few fall flat, such as this that ends, “Although sometimes, / you’re bound to fail, / keep measuring—and use a scale.”
A mixed bag thematically but a delicious collection nevertheless. (Picture book/poetry. 6-11)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2790-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing.
Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.
Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-362-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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