The Mistakes That Made UsConfessions from Twenty Poets
Review posted April 15, 2025.
Carolrhoda Books, 2024. 40 pages.
Review written April 10, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
Here's a kids' poetry collection with fun poems, stellar authors, and a fantastic message: Everybody makes mistakes!
Twenty different children's authors wrote a poem about a mistake they made in childhood. A prose paragraph highlighted next to each one gives some additional reflection. For example, after we read Allan Wolf's poem about scoring a soccer goal for the opposing team, we learn that he was ten years old and in the fourth grade, and it hit hard - but he eventually recovered with a funny story to tell.
That one's from the first section - about making a public mistake and the resultant embarrassment. Linda Sue Park writes about being proud about her superior reading skills - and then pronouncing "materials" as "Matter-I-Alls" in front of the whole class. David Elliott writes about copying his friend's science journal so carefully that he even wrote her name across the top of the pages.
The next section, "Stuff Happens," is about mistakes that hurt ourselves more than anyone else. "Times when we ignore that little voice saying, 'Are you sure this is a good idea?'" Margarita Engle writes about cutting off her long braids because a girl told her she looked old-fashioned and foreign. Vikram Madan kept secret for months that his eyesight was blurry - until he ran into something he didn't see and injured himself. And Kim Rogers silently celebrated Land Run Day with her classmates in Oklahoma, even though it was celebrating stealing her ancestors' land.
The poems for "Blessings in Disguise" cover times when there was an unexpected silver lining. Jorge Argueta doesn't sound repentant at all talking about the day he skipped school and played by the river in the guava trees. Charles Waters tells a touching story of giving a coach an encouraging word about a tough loss and being earnestly thanked - only to learn later that the man's wife had died.
The final section, "What Have I Done?" is about the mistakes with the deepest regrets, because they hurt other people. These range from not being properly thankful for a birthday gift to spilling a friend's secret to glueing an uncle's bottom to the toilet seat. Yikes! Here's the start of that one by Darren Sardelli:
My mother used to tell me,
"Think before you do."
I wish I would have stopped and thought
before I used the glue.
Perhaps hearing about and, yes, laughing at the mistakes of others will help kids to think a moment when it's their turn. And when that inevitable Oops! happens, at least they'll know they're not alone.