A bubbly and educational bilingual poetry anthology for children.
Occasions big and small are celebrated with kid-friendly poems in this English/Spanish anthology compiled by Vardell and Wong (The Poetry Anthology for Science, 2014, etc.).
The latest in the Poetry Friday Anthology brings together classroom poems for nearly every day of the year and seemingly every occasion under the sun. The lighthearted collection, which is aimed at students between kindergarten and fifth grade, includes 156 poems written in English by 115 poets, with Common Core State Standards and Texas educational standards in mind. In addition to birthdays and well-known religious holidays—Christmas, Passover, Ramadan, etc.—the poetry marks national traditions such as Thanksgiving and Groundhog Day as well as more obscure dates on the calendar like National Hat Day, Band-Aid Day, and International Dinosaur Month. The anthology looks beyond the United States to educate students about festivals throughout the world, too, such as Nepal’s Dashain and Japan’s Obon. It also celebrates diversity at home, with poems observing holidays such as Gay Pride Day, Arab American Heritage Month, and National Blended Family Day. Each poem is accompanied by its Spanish translation, an important addition given that Spanish is the most spoken non-English language in the U.S., not to mention the wide range of benefits learning a foreign language can have on the developing brain. The translations might, perhaps unintentionally, also serve as a minilesson in the notorious difficulty of moving poetry from one language into another: rhymes and rhythms in the original are oftentimes missing in the Spanish, and in a collection of punchy children’s verse, the lack of musicality is noticeable. In general, the poems are didactic in content, but scattered among the straightforward fare are several more whimsical compositions that might elicit a chuckle or two from parents helping their little ones with homework. “Picky Eater” by Matt Forrest Esenwine particularly stands out for its Seussian style: “but please don’t give me / Sugar Smacks, / or stars or squares or flakes / you’ve found— / I only eat, you see, / what’s round.”
A bubbly and educational bilingual poetry anthology for children.Pub Date: March 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1937057411
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Pomelo Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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