bookshelf

POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: ANIMAL POEMS

Name: POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: ANIMAL POEMS
Author: John Hollander
ISBN: 1-4027-0926-9

edited by John Hollander & illustrated by Simona Mulazzani ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 22, 2005

bookshelf

The newest volume in the Poetry for Young People series continues the format; Hollander gathers 34 short selections on a common theme—here, real animals, as opposed to the imaginary sort—and prefaces each with cogent comments on the poet and on images or references in the poem that might be unfamiliar to young readers. His choices range from such chestnuts as Lear’s “Owl and the Pussy-cat” and Blake’s “The Tyger” to Wallace Stevens’s “Earthy Anecdote,” verses from Marianne Moore to a chameleon, May Swenson on tourists viewing bison, and, to close, a lyrical, 900-year-old fragmentary lullaby from Greek poet Alcman. Mulazzani poses animatedly the creatures in her painted illustrations, against simplified natural backgrounds, and aside from misrepresenting the titular feline in Yeats’s “Cat and the Moon” as tiger-striped, sticks to literal interpretations. Despite notably inconsistent page design that even has the text of one poem (William Carlos Williams’s “Gulls”) switching from black to white in mid-course, this, like its predecessors, will help readers at least begin to understand what poetry is all about, without waxing too intrusively pedantic. (Poetry. 10+)

Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2005

ISBN: 1-4027-0926-9

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Sterling

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S POETRY

bookshelf

SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS

by Jack Cheng ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2017

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.

bookshelf

If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?

For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MANY MASKS OF ANDY ZHOU
by Jack Cheng ; illustrated by Jack Cheng

bookshelf

HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN

by Ginny Rorby ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015

Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.

bookshelf

Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?

Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.

Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)