An intimidating poem lovingly interpreted.
A story illustrated around a selection from Stein’s 1914 poetry collection, Tender Buttons.
How, exactly, does one visually interpret Stein?? “I hope she has her cow” lends itself to a clear-enough image. And lines like “Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther” are obviously evocative. But what of “If it is absurd then it is leadish” or “little leading mention nothing?” Illustrator Stone takes words by the famed experimental poet and lets her imagination lead her to a story about “a little girl named Pauline who lives with her mom in a house on stilts by the sea.” This interpretation is as good as any other, and Stone’s loose-limbed, crudely emotional, brightly washed illustrations do a lot to create a mystifying yet comforting world where a young white girl named Pauline, her mother, and their multiracial group of friends prepare for a party that ends with Pauline paddling out to sea. Stein isn’t for everyone, of course, so there’s no use asking that this interpretation be widely accessible or appealing, but it works, somehow, nonetheless. Less successful and more patronizing is the afterword, in which Stone explains that Stein “liked to use sentences in new ways that looked different than other people’s. Why not try saying something silly while saying something serious? she must have thought.” Must she have?
An intimidating poem lovingly interpreted. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9996584-9-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penny Candy
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be.
In U.S. Poet Laureate Limón’s debut picture book, soaring images and lyrics invite contemplation of life’s wonders—on Earth and perhaps, tantalizingly, elsewhere.
“O second moon,” writes Limón, “we, too, are made / of water, // of vast and beckoning seas.” In visual responses to a poem that will be carried by NASA’s Europa Clipper, a probe scheduled for launch in October 2024 and designed to check Jupiter’s ice-covered ocean moon for possible signs of life, Sís offers flowing glimpses of earthly birds and whales, of heavenly bodies lit with benevolent smiles, and a small light-skinned space traveler flying between worlds in a vessel held aloft by a giant book. Following the undulations of the poet’s cadence, falling raindrops give way to shimmering splashes, then to a climactic fiery vision reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night before finishing with mirrored human figures made of stars. Visual images evocative of the tree of life presage what Límon writes in her afterword: that her poem is as much about “our own precious planet” as it is about what may lie in wait for us to discover on others. “We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary loves, // of small invisible worlds, // of a need to call out through the dark.”
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781324054009
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
No substitute for blankets or shelter, but perhaps a way of securing some warmth for those in need.
Gaiman’s free-verse meditation on coming in from, or at least temporarily fending off, the cold is accompanied by artwork from 13 illustrators.
An ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the author put out a social media appeal in 2019 asking people about their memories of warmth; the result is this picture book, whose proceeds will go to the UNHCR. For many refugees and other displaced persons, Gaiman writes, “food and friends, / home, a bed, even a blanket, / become just memories.” Here he gathers images that signify warmth, from waking in a bed “burrowed beneath blankets / and comforters” to simply holding a baked potato or being offered a scarf. Using palettes limited to black and the warm orange in which most of the text is printed, an international slate of illustrators give these images visual form, and 12 of the 13 add comments about their intentions or responses. The war in Ukraine is on the minds of Pam Smy and Bagram Ibatoulline, while Majid Adin recalls his time as a refugee in France’s “Calais jungle” camp. “You have the right to be here,” the poet concludes, which may give some comfort to those facing the cold winds of public opinion in too many of the places where refugees fetch up. The characters depicted are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
No substitute for blankets or shelter, but perhaps a way of securing some warmth for those in need. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063358089
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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