edited by Paul B. Janeczko & illustrated by Robert Rayevsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2007
From a mote of dust to the Vietnam War Memorial, from a camel to a writer’s tools (pen, paper and ink), 30 short poems by nearly as many modern poets address a wide range of everyday creatures and items. Rayevsky ably captures each entry’s tone and topic by placing easily recognizable figures against broadly brushed, often semi-abstract backgrounds, and casting a muted light over each scene. As a collection, this doesn’t have enough individual identity to stand out from the crowd, but with a roster of contributors that goes from Emily Dickinson and Ogden Nash to Nikki Grimes and Dennis Lee, there should be something here to appeal to readers of nearly any preference or temperament. Possibly because the poets do speak to their subjects directly, this is billed as a companion to Dirty Laundry Pile: Poems in Different Voices (2001), illustrated by Melissa Sweet, in which objects themselves narrate—but the connection isn’t a particularly strong one. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-052347-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
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by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 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
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by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Teresa Martínez
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by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Lou Fancher & Steve Johnson
by John Updike ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 1999
Updike has revised a set of 12 short poems, one per month, first published in 1965, and Hyman’s busy, finely detailed scenes replace the original edition’s illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. The verses are written in a child’s voice—“The chickadees/Grow plump on seed/That Mother pours/Where they can feed”—and commemorate seasonal weather, flowers, food, and holidays. In the paintings a multiracial, all-ages cast does the same in comfortable, semi-rural New England surroundings, sitting at a table cutting out paper hearts, wading through reeds with a net under a frog’s watchful eye, picnicking, contemplating a leafless tree outside for “November” and a decorated one inside for “December.” The thoughts and language are slightly elevated but not beyond the ken of children, and the pictures enrich the poetry with specific, often amusing, incidents. (Poetry. 6-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1445-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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