Signature silliness from Cleary and Rowland abounds in this children’s celebration of concrete poetry.
In this second Poetry Adventures outing, poet Cleary and illustrator Rowland (If It Rains Pancakes: Haiku and Lantern Poems, 2014) again team up to explore a poetic form well suited for young readers.
A concrete poem, explains Cleary in his introduction to the pint-sized collection, “takes on the shape of whatever it is about,” with the topic “always an object (instead of a feeling or an idea)”; the poem’s “letters, words, or symbols are arranged on the page to form a picture of that object.” More staid attempts at concrete verse tend to rely on standard typefaces and creative spacing to form poems’ shapes, but here, Cleary’s 24 light subjects are aided mightily by Rowland’s intricately detailed hand-lettering and charming illustrations. The laments of a last piece of Halloween candy—“The caramel treats have been enjoyed, the nutty chocolate savored, / but no one wants a candy bar that’s ‘Tuna Salad’ flavored”—are laid out on what looks like a Kit Kat. A globe comprising balloon-shaped letters is positively buoyant: “orange / or blue and / full of helium / floating up / to reach the / ceili-um / string string string string string string.” A pretzel-shaped poem is set in letters that look as if they were drawn in mustard.
Signature silliness from Cleary and Rowland abounds in this children’s celebration of concrete poetry. (Picture book/poetry. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4677-4454-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
No substitute for blankets or shelter, but perhaps a way of securing some warmth for those in need.
Gaiman’s free-verse meditation on coming in from, or at least temporarily fending off, the cold is accompanied by artwork from 13 illustrators.
An ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the author put out a social media appeal in 2019 asking people about their memories of warmth; the result is this picture book, whose proceeds will go to the UNHCR. For many refugees and other displaced persons, Gaiman writes, “food and friends, / home, a bed, even a blanket, / become just memories.” Here he gathers images that signify warmth, from waking in a bed “burrowed beneath blankets / and comforters” to simply holding a baked potato or being offered a scarf. Using palettes limited to black and the warm orange in which most of the text is printed, an international slate of illustrators give these images visual form, and 12 of the 13 add comments about their intentions or responses. The war in Ukraine is on the minds of Pam Smy and Bagram Ibatoulline, while Majid Adin recalls his time as a refugee in France’s “Calais jungle” camp. “You have the right to be here,” the poet concludes, which may give some comfort to those facing the cold winds of public opinion in too many of the places where refugees fetch up. The characters depicted are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
No substitute for blankets or shelter, but perhaps a way of securing some warmth for those in need. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063358089
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be.
In U.S. Poet Laureate Limón’s debut picture book, soaring images and lyrics invite contemplation of life’s wonders—on Earth and perhaps, tantalizingly, elsewhere.
“O second moon,” writes Limón, “we, too, are made / of water, // of vast and beckoning seas.” In visual responses to a poem that will be carried by NASA’s Europa Clipper, a probe scheduled for launch in October 2024 and designed to check Jupiter’s ice-covered ocean moon for possible signs of life, Sís offers flowing glimpses of earthly birds and whales, of heavenly bodies lit with benevolent smiles, and a small light-skinned space traveler flying between worlds in a vessel held aloft by a giant book. Following the undulations of the poet’s cadence, falling raindrops give way to shimmering splashes, then to a climactic fiery vision reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night before finishing with mirrored human figures made of stars. Visual images evocative of the tree of life presage what Límon writes in her afterword: that her poem is as much about “our own precious planet” as it is about what may lie in wait for us to discover on others. “We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary loves, // of small invisible worlds, // of a need to call out through the dark.”
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781324054009
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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