Enticing suggestions and exercises for budding Byrons and hesitant Heaneys.
Children’s Laureate Coelho encourages young readers to awaken “the poet within.”
The author offers 41 ways to get started…beginning with hard-to-follow directions for folding and tearing a sheet of paper to make a blank booklet but going on to more helpful demonstrations of one-word poems (“the trick is to have a long title”), rhyme and repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, concrete and found poetry, select poetic forms such as haiku and (for a special challenge) triolets, and poems for holidays or other occasions. If his examples set low bars for regular rhythms or heightened language—“In the middle of the NIGHT / two KNIGHTS had a thought / to head out for adventure, / to leave behind their boring fort”—they are at least easy to emulate, and for more ambitious writers he does add a “Poetry Power-Up” exercise for each prompt. Coelho also occasionally breaks from the generally jocular tone to suggest, for instance, crafting a poem about plastic waste or on the theme of “Home Is…” for World Refugee Day. Four illustrators working in closely similar styles depict a racially diverse cast of children in exuberant poses along with colorful figures of fanciful flora, fauna, and food to provide further inspiration. The message that poetry is “about having fun with words” comes through loud and clear.
Enticing suggestions and exercises for budding Byrons and hesitant Heaneys. (Instructional picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780711285125
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing.
Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.
Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-362-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only...
“We know Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams, / but what about those other madams”?
For each first lady from Martha Washington (“Raised to be a planter’s wife, / taught how one behaves / as mistress of the household / and the household slaves”) to immigrant Melania Trump, Singer offers a thumbnail character study in verse that’s paired to an ink-and-wash figure by Carpenter. If there is any common theme, it’s mortality: Martha Jefferson, who died 19 years before her husband’s election, is represented by a framed silhouette over a silent pianoforte; Peggy Taylor lies prostrate before a tombstone; a veiled Jackie Kennedy looks out from an antique TV screen. Singer likewise often includes mention of lost husbands or children among references to favored causes and personal accomplishments. On the other hand, Mary Todd Lincoln, generously summed up as “an unlucky woman—kindly and cursed,” poses regally as her brown-skinned dressmaker (unnamed in the poem but identified in the endnotes) cuts up an American flag to make a gown while Abe stands nearby, gaping comically at a sheaf of bills. Brief profiles at the end add some detail but mostly just recap the poems’ content, and a pictorial timeline on the rear endpapers would serve as an index if the jacket flap didn’t cover a good portion of it.
Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only figuratively) next to the presidents. (Poetry/collective biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2660-0
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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