With his two children as semi-silent partners, and the evident intent of appealing both to poetry lovers and budding philologists, restaurateur/performance artist Hirsch pairs two dozen easy-to-read poems with harder-to-read (and far longer) explanatory footnotes—all rescued from pedantry by dazzling wordplay and infectious enthusiasm. A graduate degree is helpful but not required. After opening with a “Tragical-Comical-Historical-Pastoral” introduction in which he takes issue with Archibald MacLeish’s “A poem should not mean / But be,” he offers a disguised alphabet—“Abie’s seedy effigy / Eight chide Jake: a lemon / O peek. . . . ” More samples include ear rhymes and eye rhymes (followed by a “Ewe Rhyme”), palindromes, spoonerisms, acrostics, concrete poems, and puns. Beneath, in smaller type, he expands on literary and historical references, explores word derivations, defines homographs, homophones, and homonyms, or goes off on daffy tangents. Ha, yet another New Yorker artist to break into children’s books, debuts with scatterings of small, brightly colored, Adobe-generated geometric or semi-abstract shapes that float within, or dash across, the pagescapes with postmodern zest. The meaty-though-seldom-serious commentary enhances the experience of reading the poems, but is likely to lose less-well-read children. Still, Hirsch delivers the idea that words are for playing with in any number of refreshingly clever ways. (Poetry. 11+)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-316-36344-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss.
It’s 1983, and 13-year-old Indian American Reha feels caught between two worlds.
Monday through Friday, she goes to a school where she stands out for not being White but where she has a weekday best friend, Rachel, and does English projects with potential crush Pete. On the weekends, she’s with her other best friend, Sunita (Sunny for short), at gatherings hosted by her Indian community. Reha feels frustrated that her parents refuse to acknowledge her Americanness and insist on raising her with Indian values and habits. Then, on the night of the middle school dance, her mother is admitted to the hospital, and Reha’s world is split in two again: this time, between hospital and home. Suddenly she must learn not just how to be both Indian and American, but also how to live with her mother’s leukemia diagnosis. The sections dealing with Reha’s immigrant identity rely on oft-told themes about the overprotectiveness of immigrant parents and lack the nuance found in later pages. Reha’s story of her evolving relationships with her parents, however, feels layered and real, and the scenes in which Reha must grapple with the possible loss of a parent are beautifully and sensitively rendered. The sophistication of the text makes it a valuable and thought-provoking read even for those older than the protagonist.
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss. (Verse novel. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304742-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sensitive, true-to-life narrative that is respectfully and indelibly portrayed.
This coming-of-age novel in verse depicts one boy’s harrowing experiences with his eating disorder in the late 1990s.
Jake Stacey loves rollerblading, Emily Dickinson, Broadway shows, and his grandmother, but he’s not well. Jake has been starving himself since seventh grade—and concerned adults in his life have caught on. They admit Jake against his will to an inpatient program, where he’s treated for anorexia nervosa, depression, and OCD. Jake’s striking first-person voice and the ups and downs of his emotional journey toward healing are centered through a variety of poetic forms and styles, as well as journal entries and confessions Jake makes to an angel statue at a park. Jake experiences grief, gets a feeding tube, confronts horrifying memories of bullying, learns to talk back to “the Voice” of his disorder, befriends another patient, and embraces known and emerging parts of himself without over-explanation or exoticization. The emphasis on internal contradictions and the carefully rendered ending, hinting at hope without promising certainty of recovery, are especially honest and notable. Secondary characters are less well developed, and the middle of the book drags at times. A note from the author, who is white, reveals that Jake’s story is inspired by his own. While Jake, who turns 14 while in treatment, reflects on his emotionally intense tween experiences, his goal setting is relevant to older teens and includes milestones like getting a driver’s license and attending college.
A sensitive, true-to-life narrative that is respectfully and indelibly portrayed. (resources) (Verse fiction. 11-18)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781536229097
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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