Shapiro follows up Because I Could Not Stop My Bike, and Other Poems (2003), illustrated by Matt Faulkner, with 23 more ingenious takeoffs on works from Emily Dickinson and similar renowned poets. Paying due homage to the originals with citations on the page and endnotes too, she artfully commandeers phrases and rhythms while steering the actual topics in wildly different directions. She transforms Poe’s “The Bells,” for instance, to “The Smells”: “Use your nose and find the smells! / All the smells! / What a lot of different things your sniffing nose foretells!” Not all of the entries are satirical, but Shapiro’s at her best when poking fun, whether she’s riffing on Blake’s “Sick Love” (“Oh, Tummy—you are sick! / I ate too much / of ice cream on a stick.”), Lord Byron (“So, our noses we’ll be blowing”) or even Stevenson’s “Requiem”: “Under a polka-dotted sheet.” Love’s monochrome ink-and-wash illustrations feature a multi-racial cast of children in various forms of travail or postures of reverie, along with the occasional stinky sponge, spattered pet or interested-looking bird. Read these aloud, either just for fun or to add decidedly different angles to a poetry unit. (Poetry. 9-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-58089-143-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2006
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A powerfully candid and soulful account of an immigrant experience.
A Taiwanese family tries their luck in America.
In this verse novel, it’s 1980, and nearly 11-year-old Ai Shi and her mother prepare to leave Taipei to join her father in California, where he is pursuing a business opportunity with a friend. The extended family send them off, telling Ai Shi she’s so lucky to go to the “beautiful country”—the literal translation of the Chinese name for the U.S. Once they are reunited with Ba, he reveals that they have instead poured their savings into a restaurant in the remote Los Angeles County town of Duarte. Ma and Ba need to learn to cook American food, but at least, despite a betrayal by Ba’s friend, they have their own business. However, the American dream loses its shine as language barriers, isolation, financial stress, and racism take their toll. Ai Shi internalizes her parents’ disappointment in their new country by staying silent about bullying at school and her own unmet needs. Her letters home to her favorite cousin, Mei, maintain that all is well. After a year of enduring unrelenting challenges, including vandalism by local teens, the family reaches its breaking point. Hope belatedly arrives in the form of community allies and a change of luck. Kuo deftly touches on complex issues, such as the human cost of the history between China and Taiwan as well as the socio-economic prejudices and identity issues within Asian American communities.
A powerfully candid and soulful account of an immigrant experience. (Verse historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311898-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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