A moving, fascinating glimpse across cultures, perfect to pair with Trickster (2010) by Matt Dembicki.
Poet and teacher McLaughlin, after gradually connecting with his students at Red Cloud Indian School, provided them with creative-writing prompts that yielded sometimes-magical outcomes.
The Lakota people live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Shannon County, S.D., the second-poorest county in the country. An introduction depicts harsh conditions of high unemployment, poverty, disease and alcohol and drug abuse but also describes the strong cultural legacy of vibrant Lakota tales and the close ties among people. All of this is infused into the poems and brief tales of this anthology of work by children in grades five through eight. The pieces are divided into small thematic groupings. These include obvious ones like “The Natural World” and “Family, Youth, and Dreams,” but also unexpected ones like “Misery” and “Silence.” Kayla Matthews movingly describes in free verse the heartache “when you always seem to be getting dressed in black to go to a funeral” and is echoed by Derrick McCauley: “Silence is when I saw my mom for the last time.” Others are more upbeat: “Silence is the darkness of night when the moon shines bright and pine trees make the only sound,” writes Isaac Red Owl. Vivid, polychromatic illustrations by Nelson accompany the students’ evocative works.
A moving, fascinating glimpse across cultures, perfect to pair with Trickster (2010) by Matt Dembicki. (Anthology. 11 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0179-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Short pieces that rely more on wishful lore and received knowledge than historical research and evidence.
A potpourri of pieces from a personal, patriotic point of view for “the young and young at heart.”
Debut author Moss offers short “tidbits” (or “bites”) about historical people, places, things, and events in this collection. The author introduces each entry with a brief selection of original verse, followed by an equally epigrammatic explanation (“What can I say about Lincoln? He was a great man who genuinely cared for the people and this country”). After entries on Christopher Columbus, Ponce de Léon, and the Pilgrims, the rest of the “bites” relate to the history of the United States proper, from George Washington to the first man on the moon. A personal section on World War II, including entries on rationing, “My ‘Victory Garden’ and the War Effort,” and V-J Day, is the highlight of the text, as it focuses on Moss’ firsthand experiences as a child during the war. The accounts are presented roughly in chronological order, and accompanied by artwork, photographs, and illustrations from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, as well as photographs by the author. However, the sequence is flawed; for example, the book introduces Washington as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775) before Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment (1752). Furthermore, the poetry has no particular rhyme scheme, meter, or shared form. Topic choices range from the expected (Paul Revere) to the puzzling (“The Minstrel Show”), and the length of an entry seemingly bears no connection to its importance. For instance, Abraham Lincoln merits five lines of verse and two lines of exposition, while a selection on “Fun Words” has five lines of verse and more than a dozen lines about a Native American word (skookum), a name (Winnemucca), and a made-up word. Some comments show an antiquated, romanticized, and sometimes ahistorical slant, as in a description of Paiute leader Winnemucca (“He welcomed the white men when they arrived, but they were suspicious of him because he was an Indian”). The book also lacks a bibliography.
Short pieces that rely more on wishful lore and received knowledge than historical research and evidence.Pub Date: June 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4897-0205-0
Page Count: 98
Publisher: LifeRichPublishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An uncommon DIY for exuberant rule breakers.
In the spirit of Alice’s madcap adventure down the rabbit hole, this stream-of-consciousness, metafictive exploration of the poetic process dips in and out of imagined reality as easily as the Cheshire Cat winks in and out of sight.
Herrera, a former United States Poet Laureate, launches with an exhortation to “Slide on your Jabber Booots!” Taking writing pad in hand, “You have to move fast!” if “Your burbles are going to become a / Seismic & Crazy Epic Poem!” Herrera’s rules for Jabberwalking-poets-in-waiting are simple: 1) “You do not have to know where you are going! / Or what you are saying!” 2) “move!” 3) “SCRIBBLE your burbles, your words of things…Jabber!” In this topsy-turvy vision, the brain is really a burrito that spews cosmos-changing revelations to anyone paying attention. “After four hours of nonstop Jabberwriting… / YOU! In four hours—will have an… / ALMOST-BOOK!” The challenge is to interpret the resulting scribbled “burbles,” but fear not, the challenge isn’t really a challenge because no one is expected to “understand” or “decipher.” A Jabberwalker’s sole directive is to create something that’s not a “typical poem!” Between looking for the narrator's dog, Lotus, flying to the Library of Congress, landing on the word planet Pluto, and meeting a couple of Jabberbloggers, Jabberwalkers everywhere will have hopped, flown, and leapt through shape-changing exultations that have freed their “Mind-Brains.” In the right hands, all the wacky assignments and Herrera’s autobiographical “Jabber Notebook” entries will ultimately spawn incandescent thinkers who will leap to the “flamey / Stars!”—or so Herrera hopes.
An uncommon DIY for exuberant rule breakers. (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0140-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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