While the Irish connections are often opaque, repeated recitations are a must.
Webb and McCarthy present 69 nursery rhymes, poems, songs, and verses in a humorously illustrated read-aloud anthology.
The subtitle is meant literally, as the anthologist is Irish, rather than as a promise of all-Irish content. Many familiar and not iconically Irish rhymes, such as “She’ll Be Coming ’round the Mountain” and “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear,” are here, as well as Irish staples like “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” Many of the verses selected are anonymous, but in addition to William Butler Yeats, such Irish notables as James Joyce and Padraic Colum are included. Non-Irish poets of renown also appear, with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Happy Thought” and Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat,” among others. Although Webb’s introduction alludes to research that yields Irish connections, she provides little expatiation beyond informing readers that Irish-born labor organizer Mother Jones may have been that woman coming around that mountain. One verse per page is the norm, although on occasion a second complementing verse or one-liner is added. For example, Oscar Wilde’s “Symphony in Yellow,” about a yellow omnibus crawling across a bridge like a yellow butterfly, shares a page with the quip “What is a butterfly? At best, he’s but a caterpillar dressed.” Digitally composed illustrations featuring cartoonishly quirky animal and human characters (racially diverse) in muted, opaque colors decorate the book.
While the Irish connections are often opaque, repeated recitations are a must. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-84717-794-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: O'Brien Press/Dufour Editions
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Both playful and enlightening, period.
A collection of peppy poems and clever pictures explains different forms of punctuation.
Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s “A Punctuation Tale” kicks off the proceedings with a punny description of a day full of punctuation; goodnight is “cuddled / in quotation marks.” Ensuing poems discuss the comma, the apostrophe, the dash (“A subdued dude / in tweet and text / he signals what / is coming next”), the colon, the exclamation point, and ellipses. Allan Wolf’s poem about this last is called “…” and begins, “The silent ellipsis… / replaces…words missed.” Prince Redcloud’s “Question Marks” is particularly delightful, with the question “Why?” dancing diagonally down in stair steps. The emphatic answer is a repeated “Because!” Other poems pay tribute to quotation marks, the hyphen, and the period. Michele Kruger explains “The Purpose of Parentheses”: “inside a pair / ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) / of slender curves / we’ll hold your few / inserted words.” The final poem is editor Hopkins’ own, “Lines Written for You to Think About” (inspired by Carl Sandburg), urging young readers to write their own verses employing (what else?) punctuation. The 12 poets included work with a variety of devices and styles for an always-fresh feel. Bloch’s illustrations are delightfully surprising, both illustrating each poem’s key points and playfully riffing on the punctuation itself.
Both playful and enlightening, period. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59078-994-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A unique read-aloud that blends world cultures, poetic form, and natural splendor.
A pastoral panorama of bucolic settings, spare verse, and multicultural depictions of rain in this Swedish import.
Whether drops of water, flakes of snow, cherry-blossom petals, or dripping tendrils of moss, rains can nourish life, extinguish fires, and offer steady percussion for a locomotive musical interlude. On each rainy spread, life happens in haiku, with all its cultural variety and complexity: A crane observes two children resolving a quarrel, a goatherd wiggles a loose tooth while surveying the flock, a lighthouse keeper discovers an unmoored boat as puffins glide by, rangers monitor a dying forest fire while creatures scurry away, and travelers with llamas climb a steep hillside, stopping for a beetle in their path. Visual details encourage readers to learn more about the countries of origin of the peoples and animals depicted throughout. A short note on the copyright page explains haiku, especially the role of nature in the classic form. While these poems do not strictly follow all the characteristics of haiku, they do evoke different moods, such as the gathering darkness of a crocodile swamp. They also break stereotypes by juxtaposing technology and rural life—a cellphone rings amid a group of bareback riders galloping across a steppe. Most of all, they invite readers to pore over each colorful, expressive illustration to discover visual clues contained in the spare verse.
A unique read-aloud that blends world cultures, poetic form, and natural splendor. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5507-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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