WOKE: Why So Afraid?

Roaring Book Press, 2020

This fifty-six page collection of poems for ages 8-12 is brilliant, age-appropriate, and essential. The current effort in Florida and elsewhere restricts any or most instruction about racism, social justice, systemic discrimination, and other topics that may occasionally be uncomfortable but are dozens of decades past due. 

My question, and yours, should be: 

What about (and WHY?) are these topics, even as poems, so terrifying to so many folks?

 WOKE: A YOUNG POET'S CALL TO JUSTICE is written by Mahogany L. Brown with contributions by two other outstanding poets, Olivia Gatwood and Elizabeth Acevedo. With an introduction by the direct and determined Jason Reynolds, the poetry and topical power of this slim collection is honest and revealing, expanding the thinking of readers of any background. Everything about it is kid-friendly, so I challenge potential objectors (all adults) to RISK reading it, cover to cover, and comment below or in other public venues, sharing specifics about what it is, exactly, that would "harm" a child? What are you so afraid of, exactly?

Please, do NOT rely on my note below or these reviews that follow, but consider that they come from those of us who read extensively and work with young readers regularly, who know what kids enjoy, wonder about, and respond to with thoughtful connections. We are also sadly familiar with content that can be harmful, and this is not that!

For example: 

"An important book that demands to be seen. It adds to the conversation of #OwnVoices and speaks to a young person’s need for expression and social justice." - School Library Journal, Starred Review

"Worth adding to any youth poetry collection, Woke will call out to and empower its readers with a reminder that 'our voice is our greatest power.'" - Booklist

From my own reading: 

"READ. THIS.

Then share it, engage with individual poems and consider the ways in which they interact and reflect on each other. 

The illustrations and book size/format are a celebration of the contents and concepts for young readers and thinkers.

Reflect. Rinse. Repeat.

READ. THIS."

I wrote that opinion and call to action before reading this starred review from KIRKUS:

"Read it; gift it; use it to challenge, protect, and grow." 

I Say ODE, You Say ... Grecian Urn?

This post title actually reveals my own reaction to poems in the form of ODES. One official definition of an ODE is this:

a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.

Many of us who were traditionally educated in earlier decades learned Keats's ODE TO A GRECIAN URN, a poem whose language I admired but one that did nothing to inspire me or make me run right out to gush over an urn. Now, later in life, I have come to admire the excellence of the poetic structure and patterns, the lyrical flow and underlying emotional passion expressed. Even so, mention of an ODE, to me, elicits expectations of stilted language, overwrought or exaggerated emotions, and tightly structured forms.

Chronicle Books, 2023, Poetry

ODE TO A BAD DAY, written by Chelsea Lin Wallace and illustrated by Hyewon Yum takes those reactions to the ODE form (which I suspect are more common than not) and plays with them in delightful ways. Using familiar daily disappointments, a la ALEXANDER and the TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY, Wallace identifies moments in a day that knock this young girl narrator back a peg, although leaving us to slog alongside with her  to the next mundane disappointment. 

End papers reveal a charmingly aware and self-directed young girl who recognizes happiness around her but also spies miseries, even slight ones. Her body-angst while still in her morning bed (sprawling, upside down, visibly uncomfortable) call to mind a child I know who requires many square yards of mattress to make it through a night. Sometimes, her day dawns as sunny as the outdoors, and others are launched with groans. 

In this case, the first ode decries crusty eyes, rusty bones, and dusty teeth. This ode, as with all others, has an opening line to address the offending aspect of the day, and concludes with a similar line of direct address. 

The next ode is excerpted on the publishers page:

Oh Too Much Milk in My Cereal!

Soggy, squishy! Boggy, mushy!

You turned my crispy into gushy!

Slogging through the remains of the day, odes address OUCHY, LINE CUTTER, HICCUP, BOREDOM, and... just imagine more. The cover illustration aptly reveals a lass whose responses to the world and her own moods are fully felt and expressed, perhaps edging toward being a drama queen. What shines through is that she periodically calls out for tomorrow being a better day, displaying awareness of the transient nature of such misery and longing for a return to a rosy state of mind. 

Yum's illustrations are  delightfully effective, utilizing broad strokes of colors and exaggerated facial expressions and postures that reveal the narrator's moods in contrast to the reality of the quite sunny world through which she is moving. This defies the girl's descriptions of her gloomy day and ramps up the humor found in the descriptive word choices and targets of her anguish. Those illustrations also incorporate subtle details that will invite multiple readings and enhance the entertainment  factor, particularly the eye rolls and reactions of stuffed animals, even the cow on the milk carton. 

This title offers a delightful mentor writing resource for workshop use, allowing practice with the form, exploration of emotions, formal rhyme patterns, humor (without relying on puns and joke telling), and story arc/character development. Figurative language that is often used by kids in everyday conversation but is seldom addressed as a writing skill is HYPERBOLE. This picture book uses it to great effect, balancing successfully on the line between sincere and silly.This dramatic young narrator has actually inspired me to try writing some odes of this type, perhaps as self-help therapy on a bad day! Be sure to compare this to the fifty-plus year old, never-out-of-print classic ALEXANDER for a sure source of inspiration in kids who sometimes struggle to find things to write. EVERYONE has a bad day now and then, so why not write about it?

Here's an opinion from one of my most trusted review sources: 

“The poetic structure and regal cadence lend the child’s voice a sense of polite formality, bringing ironic humor to her bad day…cleverly matched with bits of visual humor” — Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books 

ICE CYCLES in Springtime? Poetry Power!

 Since this 22nd day of April included a few massive swirls of giant snowflakes outside my window, I'll celebrate a picture book of poems that explore the science of ICE. As this EARTH WEEK draws to a close, we still can find time to consider both the glory of POETRY MONTH and climate awareness.

 Ice Cycle: Poems about the Life of Ice is written by Maria Gianferrari and is illustrated by Jieting Chen. Gianferrari is  also the creator of a very popular picture book series, Penny and Jelly. for early readers.

Lerner/Milbrook Books, 2022

Poetry features a scarcity of words, aiming for ones that are "just right" in every way. Science, though, relies on precision of language, often requiring elaboration or definition  to accurately clarify complex topics and subject matter.

This remarkable book (including the lush layers of language with informative images) combines those two seemingly contrary approaches with effective balance and compelling appeal.

The detailed accuracy and investigation of types of ice will surprise many adults, but kids will soak  up such nuance like sponges. In the process they will experience superior poetry.

Here's a link to a terrific interview with the author of this this offering. With indicators of climate change finding us across the globe, helping kids to better understand the underlying science of ice and itsmrole in our world, in our own lives, is a priceless benefit. The fact that this information's these science facts, are expressed in such concise, clear poems and engaging illustrations invites more reading, and even writing, from those audiences.

If you missed this prior post, here's another poetry picture book with fascinating science!

THE DIRT BOOK: A Poetry Book With Surprises

As April winds down, my life ramps up with final preparations to move from my long time home in Wisconsin to my home town in central Ohio. I considered calling a hiatus on posts here until the transition was complete, but I can always find ways to squeeze excellent picture books into the cracks of  even the busiest of times. That is true of POETRY, too, and April is officially a month to celebrate poetry, right?

So this post and several that will follow in coming days will be short and, I hope sweet, featuring some picture books of poems that I especially enjoy. I hope you will, too. And certainly chime in with comments recommending your own favorites, fresh off the presses or classics. 

Penguin Random House, 2022

The Dirt Book: Poems About Animals That Live Beneath Our Feet is written by David L. Harrison  and Illustrated by Kate Cosgrove.

What's better than a collection of poems in a variety of formats that informs and explores the various lives (from roots to earthworms to mice) that abide mostly underground. Easy, right, to conclude "out of sight out of mind"? 

Not so in this case. 

Sharing the common habitat of "dirt", each exploration entertains and amazes in ways both familiar and unexpected. A " What's better?" response should attend to the trim size and art design that requires readers to turn the book 90 degrees and view the spreads from very long tops-to-bottom expanses. The dark-toned illustrations also remind and invite readers to consider things that don't sparkle or flash, but may well, often do, prove to be treasures of nature.

Until the next short poetry snack, enjoy some springtime DIRT!

The Power of Story: THIS IS A STORY

 My experience tells me this is universal truth:  

Gather two or more people together, especially family and friends, then mention a shared event from some time past. The recollection of, relative importance of, details retained, and consequences of that singular experience will vary far more than they will match, but all will center on the experience itself, and the people who shared it.

I say this because I've read several books for adults lately, all highly recommended by friends and family, all praised as powerful and important. I've read each with intensity and appreciation, and found that each centered its theme on the power of STORY. In each case, too, the stories within stories inspired, informed, and connected with the characters portrayed in different but significant ways. 

That's what stories do.

CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2022

Incidentally, the book I finished reading last night centered librarians as the flinders and facilitators of story, of information, of content that had been forbidden (banned, censored, legislated against) as a form of resistance and as sustainers of community.

THIS IS A STORY is written by librarian and book-lover JOHN SCHU, illustrated by LAUREN CASTILLO, and dedicated to several remarkable books-for-youth creators and the librarians who serve young people everywhere. 

In a series of simple, progressive statements, Schu leads readers from the simple recognition of words, to words on a page, to books, to topics, to the infinite portal of connections, a library. With equally progressive illustrations, Castillo presents appealingly familiar folks of diverse backgrounds and interests, each of whom explores, connects, and embraces particular books. Many of the titles used in illustrations reveal the covers and spines of beloved and award-winning favorites among the many books for kids published in recent decades. Even so, the topics and stories within those chosen distinctly call to individual readers,  readers who will warmly recommend those that touch their minds and hearts.

My guess is that those who take the invitation to try someone else's recommendations will respond differently, even if equally enthused.  "Story", whether in lived experience, oral narration, or within the pages of a book, is only one wing of a unique bird. The other, the wing needed to bring a story to life, to lift it into the heart and atmosphere and beyond, is the life-story of the reader/audience. When the author's words connect with the heart of the reader, the story flies. 

Whether reading for ourselves as adults, reading aloud to someone else (and ADULTS enjoy being read to, right?), or as young folks just discovering their own power to transform print into life, the process depends on STORY, on the meaningful connection of ideas within that form. Something has to matter. And that happens in well-written narrative nonfiction as well as in fiction.

Stories matter. Share this one. Share your own. Seek out the stories of others. 

Fly.

A Celebration of Generations: My Baba's Garden

I celebrate many picture books  in these posts, and all are memorable in one or more ways. In this case, through a story born from childhood memories of a beloved grandma, pages of lyrical text and luminous images have imprinted themselves on my mind and heart. That's not only because this is an admirable example of the best in picture books, but it issues a stirring call to my own memories of times spent with grandparents. 

 

NEAL PORTER BOOKS/Holilday House, 2023

MY BABA'S GARDEN is written by poet Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith. Using gentle and kid-friendly narration by the young boy (representing the author as a child), Scott  blends a child's view of an odd place with a loving grandma while employing rich free-verse language and metaphor:

"My Baba lived in a chicken coop beside a highway

behind a sulfur mill

shaped like an Egyptian pyramid,

bright yellow like a sun that never goes to sleep."

Smith portrays these opening scenes of dark-sky car trips and simplistic painted art such as a child would produce if asked to "paint a picture of a place you love."

The boy doesn't live with Baba, exactly, but she is central to his daily life. In predawn hours his father drives the boy to stay with her every day before leaving for work. Those early spreads shift seamlessly from primitive art to Smith's remarkable illustrations using atmospheric tones and light-infused figures amid mundane but marvelous details of a kitchen wreathed in love. Baba lived through perilous war years, when every scrap of food meant the difference between survival and starvation. Her residual habits are closely observed by the child: room after room filled with jars and bins, dried herbs and vegetables, frequent urging to eat more. Baba knows little English, but they understand each other through gestures, nods, selected words, and ever-present love.

Baba's garden is her security and sustenance, despite growing under meager conditions. Baba rescues worms in the rain, from rushing gutters, collecting them in dirt-filled glass jar to restore them to a place they can thrive-- her garden. Why, he wonders. Without words, tracing the creases in his palm, she explores the gifts, the powers worms have to aerate, to irrigate, to enrich the soil from which their lifeline foods are growing. 

When Baba's small dwelling is replaced with a big building, she comes to live at the boy's home in the city. Her old garden becomes an overgrown jungle. He cares for her the way she did for him, serving her apple slices and cereal in a bowl you could swim in. Their only garden becomes a few small pots the boy sows with her sun-gold cherry tomato seeds, visible outside her window. Rain reminds Baba to tickle his palm. It's his turn to pace through the rain, eyes lowered to locate and collect worms for the pots.

The author's note before the story begins reveals that this account hews close to his own experiences. Even having read that first, the words and illustrations grace each spread as if reliving the author's experience in a dreamlike state. Smith's skill with backlighting is more than craft, although that is abundantly clear. He infuses each scene with a magical essence that transcends our own experiences and inserts readers into the emotional tones and connections of the characters. 

I was an admirer of Sydney Smith's picture book illustration talent from his Caldecott and other awards and honors, some of which I've reviewed HERE, HERE, and HERE. It was in a more recent work of his that I lost my capacity to avoid naming favorites. I TALK LIKE A RIVER glows with comparable emotional depth and supportive connections in families. That title as well asl MY BABA'S GARDEN hold a high place one my all-time list of  recommendations. Undoubtedly this creative pair brings out the best in each other. I hope this will not be the last of their shared talent gracing picture book pages.

If you missed it, check out my recent review of Marie Boyd's JUST A WORM to celebrate the remarkable gifts and power of WORMS!

PICK A PERFECT EGG: Just in Time for EASTER!

CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2023

 I hope you are already familiar with two titles by a talented creative pair, author Patricia Toht and illustrator JARVIS. PICK A PUMPKIN and PICK A PINE are lively rhyming picture books that are ideally suited for Halloween and the winter holidays. Now this duo has produced PICK A PERFECT EGG just in time for Easter celebrations. If that holiday isn't your jam, this is also a delightful story of creativity, nature, community, maker-activity, and family experiences, not to mention that universally appealing food- EGGS!

Toht's reliably rollicking and right-on rhymes and rhythms sustain  patterns from the first two titles, while making this a distinctly independent book of its own worth. The visuals (pastels, up-close perspectives of faces, eggs, hens, and subtle suggestions of a cadre of  bunnies busily at work in the background) ideally enhance the colorful vocabulary and language that turns short stanzas into page-turners. There are moments of a-h-h and lighthearted laughter throughout. Both familiarity and recognition allow this to be a book for every child, while specificity and surprise make it exciting and re-readable.

Author Maria Marshall, fan and cheerleader for nature and nature-related activities, offers a review and "maker" suggestions for this new title, HERE.  In a related interview with Toht and Jarvis, you'll learn even more about the making of their prior books and ways in which they develop the final products of their various talents, HERE.

I hope you'll take a look, whether before the holiday or all year long. It's smile-inducing and activity-inspiring. 

Happiness Is... Finish the Phrase!

 II recently mailed out numerous greetings to friends and family, each somehow conveying "Happy Easter!'. That called to mind the word HAPPY and an upcoming picture book that resonates with my own experiences and those of many young people who have blessed my life across the years. Telling/wishing someone to be/feel HAPPY is a kind thought, but is generally without power to make it so. Feeling HAPPY is often most noticeable in its absence. For those who tend toward a happy frame of mind, a "NOT HAPPY day, or, worse yet, an UNHAPPY DAY is immediately noticeable and distressing. For those whose baseline demeanor is more neutral or situation specific, not feeling HAPPY can be a more familiar condition, more tolerable. 

Then there are some whose self-awareness of emotions trigger reflection and concern, an urge to change up the situation. If anything less than HAPPY, especially when surrounded by others displaying happiness or even wishing them HAPPY... that state of mind and heart can be even more uncomfortable. Such can be the case around holidays.

BEAMING BOOKS, May, 2023

LOOKING FOR HAPPY is written by Ty Chapman and illustrated by Keenon Ferrell. It is not a holiday book, but certainly is one to celebrate. Everything about the art and text of this book radiates emotional storytelling. The front cover with its shades of blue background reveals the struggle of the narrator-young person whose daily life is typically joyous but who experiences a day of struggle. The back cover transforms to vibrancy, with brilliant rose and amber backgrounds, and shows this same narrator channeling their chance discovery of music, resolving the burden they carry throughout the text. Both the illustrations and text invite the reader into this personal account of a day of disconnection.

The word "sad" is never used. After an opening spread revealing that the narrator is usually light and breezy with dancing feet (a hint of their eventual resolution), the problem of the day is felt through dragging feet, a noisy brain, and a chest full of rocks. The following spreads allow this self-aware character to initiate efforts to remove these uncomfortable sensations through reading, watching funny programs, and playing with friends. All are  powerful choices, yet ineffective on this weighty, noisy, achy day. When Grandma proposes a walk to the park, even lively nature encounters fail to relieve this weighty day. Only when a chance encounter with music breaks through the gloom does the instrumental lilt weave its attraction. Soon the power of song has those leaden feet dancing, that noisy mind wrapping itself around melody and lyrics. 

The author's effective but  limited text wraps itself directly around this character's inner sensations and self-aware discomfort with the status of their mood. Portraying simple but often effective strategies to shake off such discomfort demonstrates agency and independence, as does their willingness to go along with Grandma's suggestion despite doubting it will help. Readers will identify with the inner journey and also root for success from start to finish. Illustrations both underpin the emotional progressions and expand the straightforward text with recognizable and familiar details of daily life. Color choices throughout are worth examining closely and could serve as mentor examples in art instruction.

The overall impact is not in the least didactic but instead unfolds like a brief and dramatic play, keeping readers attention throughout and inviting them to join in a celebratory dance and song at the end. In fact, if I were still in a classroom or had young folks in my home I'd incorporate this picture book not only for its full-hearted entertainment value, but to spark discussion and brainstorming for ways our best selves (like this character on the opening pages) can note and call on the aspects of the world through which we express happiness, holding those practices in mind for use when a day just gets us down.

LOOKING FOR HAPPY will release on May 2 and can be preordered now, HERE or wherever you purchase books. A copy was was provided to me by then publisher, BEAMING BOOKS, without a promise of review.