Florian (Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs, 2001, etc.) keeps rolling along through one successful thematic poetry collection after another, making his work look as effortless and joyful as child’s play. In this latest collection, a companion to his Winter Eyes (1999), he explores both the positives and negatives of the summer season in 28 short, rhyming poems that succeed in being both humorous and finely crafted. Each poem distills one aspect of summer life into a small, polished shell full of rich vocabulary, often encapsulating a common experience such as skipping rope, telling ghost stories around a campfire, swimming like an otter, or fending off flies. Florian’s poems often include clever wordplay or invented words. (“Summerize” sums up the four months of the season in just four lines; “The Sum of Summer” creates new numerical designations: “four fillion flies and five sillion fleas.”) He also includes lots of action themes, as well as sensory experiences that make the reader remember the heat and humidity of summer weather and the warmth of summer sunshine. Florian’s characteristic watercolor illustrations accompany each poem, adding additional notes of simple but stylish humor. Teachers will like this collection for use in the early elementary grades, especially during the last weeks of school; parents will like it for reading aloud on long car trips; and kids will like it because the poems are funny, rhyming, and short. This is children’s poetry at its best, and Florian’s fans will be waiting for the corresponding collections on fall and spring. (Poetry. 4-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029267-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A little girl is going with her daddy to visit the home of Langston Hughes. She too is a poet who writes about the loves of her life—her mommy and daddy, hip-hop, hopscotch, and double-dutch, but decidedly not kissing games. Langston is her inspiration because his poems make her “dreams run wild.” In simple, joyful verse Perdomo tells of this “Harlem girl” from “Harlem world” whose loving, supportive father tells her she is “Langston’s genius child.” The author’s own admiration for Hughes’s artistry and accomplishments is clearly felt in the voice of this glorious child. Langston’s spirit is a gentle presence throughout the description of his East 127th Street home and his method of composing his poetry sitting by the window. The presentation is stunning. Each section of the poem is part of a two-page spread. Text, in yellow, white, or black, is placed either within the illustrations or in large blocks of color along side them. The last page of text is a compilation of titles of Hughes’s poems printed in shades of gray in a myriad of fonts. Collier’s (Martin’s Big Words, 2001, etc.) brilliantly complex watercolor-and-collage illustrations provide the perfect visual complement to the work. From the glowing vitality of the little girl, to the vivid scenes of jazz-age Harlem, to the compelling portrait of Langston at work, to the reverential peak into Langston’s home, the viewer’s eye is constantly drawn to intriguing bits and pieces while never losing the sense of the whole. In this year of Langston Hughes’s centennial, this work does him great honor. (Poetry. 6-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6744-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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