Joy indeed.
The virtues of reading and playing with words collide in Mora and Colón’s latest collaboration.
Mora begins with an appeal: “Let’s read, let’s write, let’s explore galore!” The subsequent series of poems demonstrates the dual importance of bookjoy, “the fun of reading,” and wordjoy, “the fun of writing.” For the latter, see the second poem, entitled “Collecting Words,” which encourages readers to treasure words like “ding-dong” and “sssssssssssssnake.” Some poems follow a didactic arc (“Writing Secrets,” for example, aims to reassure budding writers), but most bask in wordplay and whimsy with aplomb. “Our Cottage in the Woods” focuses on a mother and her child in the woods, the garden, the “cool creek” as they watch hummingbirds and bake and read together. In the wonderful “Antelope Canyon,” the author describes the creation of a canyon, with “waterfalls / buffing sharp corners into curves, / careening around boulders.” In the accompanying illustration, Colón’s artwork shows a dark-skinned child at the bottom of a vibrant canyon gazing up at the night sky while an antelope does the same from above. Overall, the superb pictures feature a racially diverse cast—often with elongated, lively bodies—and landscapes full of curves and curls in bright, earthy colors. Not all poems hold up well, but the author peppers Spanish phrases here and there to add some new layers to a gratifying collection.
Joy indeed. (Picture book/poetry. 6-12)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62014-286-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and...
Past and present are quilted together in this innovative overview of black Americans’ triumphs and challenges in the United States.
Alexander’s poetry possesses a straightforward, sophisticated, steady rhythm that, paired with Nelson’s detail-oriented oil paintings, carries readers through generations chronicling “the unforgettable,” “the undeniable,” “the unflappable,” and “the righteous marching ones,” alongside “the unspeakable” events that shape the history of black Americans. The illustrator layers images of black creators, martyrs, athletes, and neighbors onto blank white pages, patterns pages with the bodies of slaves stolen and traded, and extends a memorial to victims of police brutality like Sandra Bland and Michael Brown past the very edges of a double-page spread. Each movement of Alexander’s poem is a tribute to the ingenuity and resilience of black people in the U.S., with textual references to the writings of Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, and Malcolm X dotting stanzas in explicit recognition and grateful admiration. The book ends with a glossary of the figures acknowledged in the book and an afterword by the author that imprints the refrain “Black. Lives. Matter” into the collective soul of readers, encouraging them, like the cranes present throughout the book, to “keep rising.”
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and our tomorrow. (Picture book/poetry. 6-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-78096-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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