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LET

Name: LET
Author: Kei Miller
ISBN: 9781951836450

A POEM ABOUT WONDER AND POSSIBILITY

by Kei Miller ; illustrated by Diana Ejaita ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 22, 2023

Vivid visuals for a strong, if gnomically put, proposition.

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Silhouettes and bold colors swirl in illustrations paired to a short meditation on the first word spoken in the Book of Genesis.

“Suppose,” writes poet Miller, “there was a book full only of the word, let,” giving existence to all things “fir and firmament.” Might we not find a “Let” just for each of us, that we could say and repeat “until even silent dreams had been allowed”? Younger or less reflective audiences may find the author’s trains of thought about speaking “in auto-rhyme” and “stumbl[ing] through the streets with open books / eyes crossed from too much reading” hard to unpack. But Ejaita offers accompanying scenes that will have an immediate impact on every viewer, as human and animal silhouettes join tree and other plant shapes, flowing lines of water, and sprays of stars in a dazzling and increasingly crowded dance culminating in a flurry of birds freed to fly, like the creative impulse, anywhere in our minds or world. It’s a liberating invitation, though children may respond more strongly to similar but less abstract calls in the likes of Juan Felipe Hererra’s Imagine (2018), illustrated by Lauren Castillo, Raúl Colón’s Imagine! (2018), or Tom Burlison’s Imagine That! (2020), illustrated by Sara Sanchez. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Vivid visuals for a strong, if gnomically put, proposition. (Picture book. 8-10)

Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023

ISBN: 9781951836450

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Cameron Kids

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

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WOODY GUTHRIE

POET OF THE PEOPLE

by Bonnie Christensen & illustrated by Bonnie Christensen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 2001

A powerful, lyrical tribute to the musician whose music is so much a part of our lives.

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This moving biography honors the life and work of the legendary folk singer who celebrated the lives of working people all over the US.

Guthrie, born in Oklahoma in 1912, came from a poor family filled with music, but devastated by death and illness. As a youngster, he absorbed the sounds of country living and the traditional music of Oklahoma and Texas. Later, during the Great Depression, he used these memories to become a popular voice for the dust bowl refugees, writing and singing about them and performing on radio in Los Angeles. He spent years moving from place to place in support of the union movement, migrant field workers, and coal miners. Christensen (Moon Over Tennessee, 1999, etc.) writes briefly of his marriages, his children, and his eventual tragic death from Huntington’s disease, but the thrust is his devotion to the cause of downtrodden workers. The words of his signature song “This Land is Your Land” run along the top of each page and are printed in their entirety at the end along with a timeline and Web site citation. (No bibliography or source notes are included.) Christensen’s text is strong and beautiful, as rich in images as her subject’s music. Through them, the reader will get a wonderful sense of the soul of her subject and his times. Read aloud, this could work for younger readers, but the dramatic mixed media, woodcut-like illustrations in a picture-book format will attract older ones as well.

A powerful, lyrical tribute to the musician whose music is so much a part of our lives. ((Biography. 8-10))