With a little modification, this is a lively and uplifting poem to share aloud with children, or for adults and children to...
A short lyrical celebration of innocence, childhood wonder and the constancy of family love.
Favoring impressionism over narrative, Meyers’ paean to the joys of childhood packs a lot of picturesque imagery into its 37 lines. From loved ones to games, from junk food to elves, from the wonders of nature to the comforts of home, Meyers covers the gamut of childhood adventure, imagination and pleasure. The idealized childhood envisioned by this poem is one of unfettered curiosity, active exploration and engagement with the world and unconditional love. Though no singular narrative voice asserts itself amid the rapid-fire succession of images, the refrain of “Hugs and Kisses with Lots of Love” that closes each of the eight stanzas suggests a giver of hugs and kisses, a kindly singer behind the song, and reveals the song itself to be an invocation of blessing intended for her young listeners. Employing a heterometric rhythmic structure, Meyers produces some interesting and fun lines in unexpected ways. For instance, by interspersing some trochees and using feminine rhyme, she is able to shape dactyls, traditionally associated with serious and elegiac verse, into lighthearted lines such as “Marshmallows crispy all gooey and yummy / Open your mouth and fill-up your tummy.” Not every line works quite so well, but the prevalence of trochaic lines—long used in nursery rhymes and famously by William Blake in Songs of Innocence and Experience—along with an abundance of action-evoking present participial forms and a semiregular rhyme scheme, make reading this poem aloud a pleasurable shared experience—with one unfortunate exception. The metrically dissonant refrain, repeated eight times throughout the poem, tends to bring each stanza up short, jarring the reader from the fun and fast-paced flow of the previous lines. The poem reads significantly better if all iterations of that line, except the last, are skipped.
With a little modification, this is a lively and uplifting poem to share aloud with children, or for adults and children to recite together.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1434965516
Page Count: 8
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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