|
|
• • •  • • • • • • •
|
April 2006 Book Picks
April is National Poety Month! Broaden your reading horizons with one of the following collections!
The Woman I Kept to Myself by Julia Alverez (811 A)
"Seventy-five poems weave together the narrative of a woman's inner life-- these
are not are not poems of a woman discivering herself-- Alverez might say that's
what her twenties were for, but of a woman returning to herself. Now, in the middle
of her life, she looks back as a way of understanding and celebrating the woman she
has become. Her voice becomes all our voices as she speaks of failed loves and
marriages, late-in-life love, and the politics and prejudices that haunt us."
-- excerpt taken from book jacket |
 |
Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from Writerscorps (811P)
"Poems by teens in the San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, programs are gathered loosely into sections with titles like "Friendship," "I Too Am American," and "Furious." Each section begins with a quote about writing, and a sample writing exercise. The free-verse poems vary in voice from narrative to lyric to performance; they are edgy, mysterious, and assertive in tone. Subjects range from friendship to parenthood, from the importance of doing right to the importance of doing nothing." -- The Kirkus Review, February 1, 2003 |
 |
Boris by Cynthia Rylant (811 R)
"Cat lovers will love the poetic story of Boris, a big gray cat that integrates his cat habits and personality into the life of his new owner. This story of love and companionship between a cat and his owner is written as poetry and begins with the day his new owner finds him in a humane shelter. Throughout the story Boris sleeps, hunts, explores, and befriends new neighbors as his owner develops an understanding and appreciation of her relationship with her cat and her cat's relationship with her. Boris is a story that will leave the reader wondering what happened to Boris and his owner's lives after their story ends."
-- Library and Media Connection, October 2005 |
 |
A Maze Me: Poems for Girls by Naomi Shihab Nye (811 Nye)
"In her introduction, Nye says: "If you write three lines down in a notebook every day-you will find out what you notice. Uncanny connections will be made visible to you. That's what I started learning when I was twelve, and I never stopped learning it." The more than 70 poems are all over the map in terms of subject, but all are in Nye's unique voice: keenly detailed, empathetic, and humorous. Many of the selections focus on feelings particular to girls. Others are universal, such as "High Hopes": "Now that I know the truth,/that I only dreamed someone liked me,/the cat has curled up in a bed of leaves/against the house and I still have to do/everything I had to do before/without a secret hum/ inside."
-- School Library Journal, March 1, 2005
|
 |
Girl Coming In for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland (811W365g)
"This collection of verse is in the voice of an unnamed teenager. During the course of a school year in California that is divided into sections (Autumn, Winter, Spring), she welcomes back her best friend Leslie and then has a fight with her, plays Mozart duets on her violin with Yen-Mei, and learns about kissing with Carlo. She is a writer, and she works at it, and she's dazzled when her teacher, in his honey-sweet Tennessee accent, suggests she's good enough to be published in "Faan Powms." She tries out for drama club, hangs out with her Great Aunt Ida, and ruefully examines her pull-and-tug relationship with an older sister. Employing many forms of verse, some rhymed, some not, she even writes a sonnet; all of them are accessible and exquisitely crafted."
-- The Kirkus Review, June 15, 2002 |
 |
|
|
