A colorful, warm collection that young readers and poets will savor.
An imaginative young poet makes his debut.
Whether one should look at the art or the artist is an age-old question. In this case, the artist is a 4-year-old who wrote a poem in preschool, fell in love with poetry, and continued to create poems that were then recorded by his mother (and later, as he learned to write, by himself). Accompanied by energetic illustrations full of buoyant, frolicking children of varying races, the results of his first year of writing are striking: imaginative phrases, perceptive moments, and poems that feel finished in a unique way, with some bits and pieces you’d expect from a 4-year-old, not at all a bad thing. As a picture of a precocious and talented child’s perceptions and expressions, these poems are fresh and exciting, while as a collection of memorable poems, this selection presents a preschooler's world. Teachers can use the structures of some of the lines as jumping-off points for students, and kids will be delighted to see the work of a peer in print. The poems themselves capture the newness and excitement of being a child, making friends, loving your mom, hoping, wishing, and learning how to express feelings by painting a picture with words. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A colorful, warm collection that young readers and poets will savor. (Poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2316-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it.
Former National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman invites girls to raise their voices and make a difference.
“Today, we finally have a say,” proclaims the first-person plural narration as three girls (one presents Black, another is brown-skinned, and the third is light-skinned) pass one another marshmallows on a stick around a campfire. In Wise’s textured, almost three-dimensional illustrations, the trio traverse fantastical, often abstract landscapes, playing, demonstrating, eating, and even flying, while confident rhymes sing their praises and celebrate collective female victories. The phrase “LIBERATION. FREEDOM. RESPECT” appears on a protest sign that bookends their journey. Simple and accessible, the rhythmic visual storytelling presents an optimistic vision of young people working toward a better world. Sometimes family members or other diverse comrades surround the girls, emphasizing that power comes from community. Gorman is careful to specify that “some of us go by she / And some of us go by they.” She affirms, too, that each person is “a different shape and size,” though the art doesn’t show much variation in body type. Characters also vary in ability. Real-life figures emerge as the girls dream of past luminaries such as author Octavia Butler and activist Marsha P. Johnson, along with present-day role models including poet and journalist Plestia Alaqad and athlete Sha’carri Richardson; silhouettes stand in for heroines as yet unknown. Imagining that “we are where change is going” is hopeful indeed.
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593624180
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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