paper 0-15-202052-7 According to the introduction, this gathering of poetry from Europe and the Americas began as clippings in a shoebox, collected over years by Willard (Magic Cornfield, 1997, etc). The selections are meaty, with D.H. Lawrence’s three-line “The White Horse” and Robert Frost’s deliciously eerie, six-page dialogue, “The Witch of Coîs,” at the extremes for length, and make an eclectic mix, leaning toward newer poets but including a Mother Goose rhyme, Christopher Smart’s “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry,” and “Donal Og,” a traditional lament for love betrayed. The arrangement is, broadly, by subject, beginning with Emily Dickinson’s “Will There Really Be a ‘Morning’?” and closing with poems featuring night, death, and dreams. Selections in between touch on wind and water, sensory epiphanies (Pablo Neruda sings an “Ode to a Pair of Socks” while Theodore Roethke’s “Slug” is about stepping on one), animals, children, old folk, and even bodies, as in Lucille Clifton’s “Homage to My Hips.” Few of the poems were written specifically for an audience of the young, but those who aren’t thrown by e.e. cummings’s “If there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have” should comprehend the syntax and content of the rest. It’s a highly personal collection, chosen with a fine ear for language and rightfully commended by Willard for “celebrating the ordinary in an unordinary way.” (Poetry. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-201849-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
paper 0-395-97499-2 Introducing this overview of everyday life in a Plains Indian village circa 1868 is a map locating tribal lands of the Plains Indians. Contemporary Native Americans pose as models depicting the full regalia of the Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, Crow, and Blackfeet. In re-enactment style, reminiscent of a visit to a living history village, each “actor” then personifies a member in the family of Real Bird, a northern Cheyenne warrior from the plains of southeastern Montana. A staged full-color photograph of family members engaged in role-specific work, leisure, food preparation, warfare, trade, and ritual is at the center of each spread, surrounded by additional text and captions that expand each topic. Sees the Berries Woman and Pretty Plume Woman demonstrate the construction of a tipi in a frame-by-frame, five-step procedure; warriors and chiefs hold council in a pre-battle ceremony; Timber Leader shows off a bearskin that gives him healing powers. Artifacts such as beadwork, weapons, tools, toys, and medicine objects lend authenticity to this informative survey and history of the culture. (chronology, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-94542-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
A busy page design—artily superimposed text and photos, tinted portraits, and break-out boxes—and occasionally infelicitous writing (“Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie became . . . bandleader of the quintet at the Onyx Club, from which bebop got its name”) give this quick history of jazz a slapdash air, but Lee delves relatively deeply into the music’s direct and indirect African roots, then goes beyond the usual tedious tally of names to present a coherent picture of specific influences and innovations associated with the biggest names in jazz. A highly selective discography will give readers who want to become listeners a jump start; those seeking more background will want to follow this up with James Lincoln Collier’s Jazz (1997). (glossary, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8239-1852-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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