Review of Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Science, Starred Review 0

winter_bees_largeWinter Bees
& Other Poems of the Cold

by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2014. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Nonfiction

Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold is a magnificent collection of poetry, science, and art – all about creatures of winter.

The poems are lovely and evocative, the artwork is stunning, and the facts presented after each poem are surprising and interesting.

Usually, the poem gives the voice of the animal being featured, then a paragraph on the facing page gives more details. The creatures highlighted include tundra swans, garter snakes, moose, honeybees (in winter), beavers, wolves, ravens, voles, chickadees, snow fleas, and skunk cabbages.

As one example, here’s “Snake’s Lullaby,” featuring an illustration of a tangle of garter snakes, which we are told brumate together in a tangled mass underground.

Brother, sister, flick your tongue
and taste the flakes of autumn sun.

Use these last few hours of gold
to travel, travel toward the cold.

Before your coils grow stiff and dull,
your heartbeat slows to winter’s lull,

seek the sink of sheltered stones
that safely cradle sleeping bones.

Brother, sister, find the ways
back to the deep and tranquil bays,

and ‘round each other twist and fold
to weave a heavy cloak of cold.

This is a beautiful book which will draw the reader back again and again.

Do you have a child who likes facts about animals? This book is full of choice bits. You’ll learn about subnivean creatures. You’ll learn about springtails – tiny arthropods whose tails flip them up into the air. You’ll learn how honeybees keep the hive warm during the winter, and so many other interesting facts. And while your child is learning, the chances are good that they will be pulled into enjoyment of the accompanying poetry and artwork.

joycesidman.com
kenspeckleletterpress.com
hmhco.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/winter_bees.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

brown_girl_dreaming_largeBrown Girl Dreaming

by Jacqueline Woodson

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin), 2014. 337 pages.
Starred Review
2014 National Book Award winner for Young People’s Literature
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2, Children’s Nonfiction
2014 Cybils Finalist, Poetry

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir in verse. It’s lovely, and I hope children will find it in the nonfiction shelves of our library.

Jacqueline Woodson writes evocatively of her childhood, in Ohio, then South Carolina, then New York City. She wanted to be a writer even when she was a child, and catches that dream. She writes about being a Jehovah’s Witness, and about her family, about her best friend (who is still her best friend), and about how South Carolina and New York City were so different from each other.

I like the way each poem tells about a particular incident, but taken together they give a picture of her life. They are also told in different styles, focusing on different things – family, places, growing, writing.

There’s a series of haiku sprinkled throughout, all titled “how to listen.” Here is “how to listen #9”:

Under the back porch
there’s an alone place I go
writing all I’ve heard.

I’ll include some poems I enjoyed.

a girl named jack

Good enough name for me, my father said
the day I was born.
Don’t see why
she can’t have it, too.

But the women said no.
My mother first.
Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back
patting the crop of thick curls
tugging at my new toes
touching my cheeks.

We won’t have a girl named Jack, my mother said.

And my father’s sisters whispered,
A boy named Jack was bad enough.
But only so my mother could hear.
Name a girl Jack, my father said,
and she can’t help but grow up strong.
Raise her right, my father said,
and she’ll make that name her own.
Name a girl Jack
and people will look at her twice, my father said.

For no good reason but to ask if her parents
were crazy, my mother said.

And back and forth it went until I was Jackie
and my father left the hospital mad.

My mother said to my aunts,
Hand me that pen, wrote
Jacqueline where it asked for a name.
Jacqueline, just in case someone thought to drop the ie.

Jacqueline, just in case
I grew up and wanted something a little bit longer
and further away from
Jack.

Here’s a story about her sister:

the reader

When we can’t find my sister, we know
she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand,
a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her.

We know we can call Odella’s name out loud,
slap the table hard with our hands,
dance around it singing
“She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain”
so many times the song makes us sick
and the circling makes us dizzy
and still
my sister will do nothing more
than slowly turn the page.

Later, there’s more about her sister:

gifted

Everyone knows my sister
is brilliant. The letters come home folded neatly
inside official-looking envelopes that my sister proudly
hands over to my mother.
Odella has achieved
Odella has excelled at
Odella has been recommended to
Odella’s outstanding performance in

She is gifted
we are told.
And I imagine presents surrounding her.

I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.

This one’s a nice family poem:

harvest time

When Daddy’s garden is ready
it is filled with words that make me laugh when I say them –
pole beans and tomatoes, okra and corn
sweet peas and sugar snaps,
lettuce and squash.

Who could have imagined

so much color that the ground disappears
and we are left
walking through an autumn’s worth
of crazy words
that beneath the magic
of my grandmother’s hands

become

side dishes.

And perhaps my favorite is about Jacqueline deciding she’s going to be a writer:

when i tell my family

When I tell my family
I want to be a writer, they smile and say,
We see you in the backyard with your writing.
They say,
We hear you making up all those stories.
And,
We used to write poems.
And,
It’s a good hobby, we see how quiet it keeps you.
They say,
But maybe you should be a teacher,
a lawyer,
do hair . . .

I’ll think about it, I say.

And maybe all of us know

this is just another one of my
stories.

The whole book gives a flavor of love and family and a girl listening to the world around her. Indeed, it’s the story of a brown girl dreaming.

jacquelinewoodson.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/brown_girl_dreaming.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Firefly July, selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Starred Review 0

firefly_july_largeFirefly July

A Year of Very Short Poems

selected by Paul B. Janeczko
illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Candlewick Press, 2014. 48 pages.
Starred Review

I’m not proud to say it, but a poetry book has to be something special to wow me. Firefly July is stunning.

The poems chosen have one thing in common: They are all short. They are also fit nicely into the context of a specific season.

A few are well-known, and I’d heard of them in my childhood, such as “The Red Wheelbarrow,” by William Carlos Williams, and “Fog,” by Carl Sandburg. Several more were by poets I’d heard of, such as Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. But the majority were entirely new to me. Those, too, were short and sweet and lovely.

Of course, the fact that all the poems are short makes this perfect for young kids looking for their first poem to memorize.

But the stunning part of the book is the way the bright pictures work with the poetry. I love the water lily on the page with this poem:

Water Lily

My petals enfold stamens of gold.
I float, serene, while down below

these roots of mine are deeply stuck
in the coolest most delicious muck.

–Ralph Fletcher

Melissa Sweet’s artwork is hard to describe. There are collage elements and bright colors and unsophisticated line drawings and friendly faces. They work beautifully with the poems in this collection.

candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/firefly_july.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Singing School, by Robert Pinsky

Art, Nonfiction Review, Poetry 0

singing_school_largeSinging School

Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters

by Robert Pinsky

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2013. 221 pages.

Singing School is a collection of great poetry. Along with the poetry, analysis is given as to why the poems work. The reader’s attention is drawn to effective techniques, sonorous sounds, and apt images. And challenges are given. For example, with Jonathan Swift’s, “A Description of the Morning,” we have the caption, “Try your own, contemporary version of this, in your own world, keeping it fresh yet recognizable – good luck.”

Robert Pinsky explains the motivation for this book in his Preface:

That the poem by Milton (1608-1674) had gotten under the skin of Ginsberg (1926-1997) exemplifies the ideas that govern this book: examples precede analysis; young poets can learn a lot from old poetry. Models provide inspiration, which is different from imitation. The visual artist looks at the world, but also at art. Similarly, the musician listens, the cook eats, the athlete watches great athletes, the filmmaker watches great movies, in order to gain mastery from examples….

If you want to learn singing, you must study – not just peruse or experience or dabble in or enjoy or take a course in, but study –monumental examples of magnificent singing: study not just a pretty good poem in a recent magazine, or something that seems cool or seems to be in fashion, or that you have been taught in school, but examples that you feel are magnificent. “Magni-ficent”: the Latin roots of the word mean “making great.”…

The four section headings and their order, though not exhaustive, do represent essentials. “Freedom” is where the artist begins: there are no rules, and the principles and habits are up to you. Having confronted and embraced freedom, the poet engages in the particular work of “Listening”: sentences have melodic patterns of pitch, as well as cadences, and great work can help you hear them. So too can the speech you hear every day. The third section uses the word “Form” in a sense related to form in dance or sports – the effective shapes and arrangements of energy – rather than particular “forms” and their required patterns. Finally, “Dreaming Things Up” affirms that many essential and thrilling elements of poetry have to do with what cannot be explained: something new, waking life transformed.

I confess that I didn’t read this book to learn to write poetry. I read this book, a couple pages a day, in order to enjoy some great poems. Having aspects of their greatness pointed out to me made the experience that much better.

favoritepoem.org
wwnorton.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/singing_school.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Words with Wings, by Nikki Grimes

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Poetry, Starred Review 0

Words with Wings

by Nikki Grimes

WordSong (Highlights), Honesdale, Pennsylvania, 2013. 84 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

Words with Wings is a novel in verse about a girl who’s a daydreamer.

Here’s the poem that shares its title with the book:

Words with Wings

Some words
sit still on the page
holding a story steady.
Those words
never get me into trouble.
But other words have wings
that wake my daydreams.
They fly in,
silent as sunrise,
tickle my imagination,
and carry my thoughts away.
I can’t help
but buckle up
for the ride!

Some of the poems tell about Gabby’s life. Others tell about her daydreams. The daydream poems, imaginative and fun, usually start with the word that sets off the daydream. For example:

Waterfall

Say “waterfall,”
and the dreary winter rain
outside my classroom window
turns to liquid thunder,
pounding into a clear pool
miles below,
and I can’t wait
to dive in.

At the start of the book, Gabby’s parents split up and she has to move with her mother across town, and attend a new school. Once again, she’s known as the daydreamer. She has to deal with the other students teasing her and a new teacher trying to get her to pay attention and trying not to disappoint her mother. She has some nice victories in the book, and I love how she learns to value her own imagination.

nikkigrimes.com
wordsongpoetry.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/words_with_wings.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reading Copy signed by the author, which I was given at an author lunch hosted by Highlights, at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

More Book Spine Poetry and Happy New Year

Poetry 0

Happy New Year!

I like to post my Sonderbooks Stand-outs for the previous year on New Year’s Day. However, this year I went to California to see my family on New Year’s Day, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll get to post them.

You’ve probably also noticed that I haven’t posted any reviews for a couple weeks. Chalk it up to the holiday! I did manage to get reviews written for every book I read in 2013! But I didn’t manage to post them all, and now have 35 reviews written and waiting to be posted. Oh well!

Last year, I kept careful track of all the books I read, whether I reviewed them or not, because statistics are fun. So here are my 2013 statistics:

I read 299 picture books, (Ah! If I’d but realized, I would have read one more!)
59 books of children’s fiction,
33 books of teen fiction,
24 books of fiction for adults,
73 books of children’s nonfiction,
47 books of nonfiction for adults,
and reread 13 books for various levels.

That’s a grand total of 548 books read in 2013! Not bad!

But to tide my readers over before I get a chance to post more reviews, here are more Book Spine Poems we posted at the City of Fairfax Regional Library in the month of December:

Here’s the one by Carla Pruefer that I promised to get a picture of:

Board Stiff
A Dying Fall
Look Around
Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales

Here’s one in the spirit of the season by Karen Jakl:

When Elves Attack
All Through the Night
On Christmas Eve
Christmas, Present
The Last Noel

And here’s a lovely one by a library volunteer, Lynn Nutwell:

Sailing Alone Around the World
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Beyond the Blue Horizon
Distant Shores
A Stranger in a Strange Land
Unlikely Friendships
Unexpected Blessings

Here’s one I made when the title book was staring at me from a juvenile nonfiction display:

What Do You Do When Something Wants to Eat You?
Run for Your Life
How High Can We Climb?
Way Up High in a Tall Green Tree
Climb or Die
Don’t Look Down
Trust Me on This
Perfect Escape

And if I remember right, this next one was written by Lisa Treichler:

Winter
A Glancing Light
Snow Falling on Cedars
All Quiet on the Western Front
Ice Cold

And finally, one I made for my own amusement and wasn’t going to post until our Branch Manager urged me to:

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Monsters Eat Whiny Children

Happy 2014!

Book Spine Poetry at City of Fairfax Regional Library

Library Links, Poetry 0

This month, the person who had reserved the display case had to cancel, so my co-worker Lynne Imre used an idea that Suzanne Levy had suggested from seeing Travis Jonker’s 100 Scope Notes blog: Book Spine Poetry!

Lynne started off the display case with this poem about poetry (with the beginning borrowed from one on Travis’s blog):

How to Write Poetry
Brainstorm!
Where Yesterday Lives
Where Dreams Begin
Where the Heart Leads
Where Wonders Prevail
Poetry Matters

Here’s my contribution, with the last line suggested by my co-worker, Karen Jakl:

Oh, Look!
Snow Day!
Let’s Go Nuts!
You Can Do Anything, Daddy!
Red Sled
All Aboard!
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Here’s another poem I wrote, feeling a little cynical — but it ends happy!

The Liar in Your Life
Lies! Lies!! LIES!!!
Deep Deception 2
Pack of Lies
“I Love You But I Don’t Trust You”
You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore
Breaking Free
Free from Lies
It’s My Life Now

And one more by me:

Why I Wake Early
The Rooster Crows
The Dogs Bark
Baby Says “Moo!”

Now come more by Lynne Imre. I especially like this next one:

Cinderella
Four Past Midnight
Runaway
Sweet Dreams
If the Shoe Fits
Now We Can Have a Wedding!

Where the Wild Things Are
Beside a Burning Sea
Under the Volcano
Beneath Blue Waters
Around the Next Corner
Right Here with You
RUN

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Outside Your Window
Waiting for Wings
A Home for Bird

Have You Seen Bugs?
What’s That Bug?
Insects
The Beatles
Hooray for Fly Guy!
Spider-Man The Venom Factor
Spider Web
I Love Bugs!

What’s the Big Idea, Molly?
Think Big
Big Plans
The Big Game
The Big Leap
The Big Bang
The Big Kerplop!

And here’s one by Lisa Treichler. It’s a conversation, so I’ll use italics for the second speaker.

Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Going to Sleep?
When the Library Lights Go Out
Absolutely Not
I Don’t Want to Go to Bed!
There’s a Monster Under my Bed
Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon
When the Moon Is Full
Take Another Look
I See the Moon
Go Away, Big Green Monster!
“I’m Not Scared!”
I Am So Strong.

Another co-worker, Carla Pruefer, made one, but I didn’t get a picture. Here are the words:

Board Stiff
A Dying Fall
Look Around
Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales

These are such fun once you get started! We are hoping some library patrons will catch the bug and write some more poems for us to display. Come to City of Fairfax Regional Library and write your own!

Review of Poems to Learn by Heart, by Caroline Kennedy

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Starred Review 0

Poems to Learn by Heart

by Caroline Kennedy
paintings by Jon J Muth

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2013. 192 pages.
Starred Review

Caroline Kennedy has collected in this book a rich treasury of poems, all worth committing to memory, and also worth reciting aloud even if you haven’t memorized them.

There’s a nice variety here, including poems I’ve known since childhood and were recited by my fellow students, such as “Casey at the Bat,” as well as much newer poems, less well-known poems, and even some poems by students.

She divides them into sections with similar themes, using a line from one of the poems to title each section. We’ve got “Here I Am and other poems about the self,” “I Dreamed I Had to Pick a Mother Out and other poems about family,” “I’m Expecting You! and other poems about friendship and love,” “I Met a Little Elf-Man, Once and other poems about fairies, ogres, and witches,” “Where Can a Man Buy a Cap for His Knee? and other nonsensical poems,” “It Is the Duty of the Student and other poems about school,” “We Dance Round in a Ring and Suppose and other poems about sports and games,” “Four Score and Seven Years Ago and other poems about war,” “The World Is So Full of a Number of Things and other poems about nature,” and “Extra Credit” (extra difficult poems to memorize).

It took me a very long time to read this book, because I read it a little at a time, trying to read as many poems as possible aloud to myself. But each time I checked the book out, it was on hold when three weeks were up, and then it took weeks for my hold to come in again. This last time, I made extra effort to finish reading it before my time was up! I’m amazed that it’s been out for months, but all copies are still on hold. I didn’t realize there were so many lovers of poetry in our county, but that fact makes me happy.

One thing’s for sure, the next time a child or a parent comes to the library looking for a poem to recite, I will give them this book – if we are lucky enough to actually find it on the shelf! This is a treasure trove of delightfully recitable poems.

disneyhyperionbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/poems_to_learn_by_heart.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of What the Heart Knows, by Joyce Sidman, illustrations by Pamela Zagarenski

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Starred Review 0

What the Heart Knows

Chants, Charms & Blessings

by Joyce Sidman
illustrations by Pamela Zagarenski

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2013. 65 pages.
Starred Review

What the Heart Knows is a book of poems by an illustrious poet, who has already won Newbery Honor, and with illustrations by a distinguished artist, who has already won Caldecott Honor.

My library has this book categorized as for young adults, but the poems can be enjoyed by old adults as well. Indeed, what makes it most a book of poetry for children is that a children’s book writer and a children’s book illustrator created it. Most of the poems are universal, and the dreamy, surreal pictures can be appreciated by anyone.

The four sections of the book are “Chants & Charms – to bolster courage and guard against evil,” “Spells & Invocations – to cause something to happen,” “Laments & Remembrances – to remember, regret, or grieve,” and “Praise Songs & Blessings – to celebrate, thank, or express love.” A “Note to the Reader” at the front of the book explains why this theme was chosen:

We speak to send messages to the world. We chant for what we want, bless what we like, lament what we’ve lost. When angry, we curse; when in love, we sing.

We have always done this. Since earliest human history, we have used language to try to influence the world around us….

We may no longer believe that words can make crops grow, prevent illness, or keep rivers from flooding. But we still believe in the power of the words themselves. Why else would we pray, sing, or write? Finding phrases to match the emotion inside us still brings an explosive, soaring joy.

I wrote these poems for comfort, for understanding, for hope: to remind myself of things I keep learning and forgetting and learning again. They’re about repairing friendship, slowing down time, understanding happiness, facing the worst kind of loss. They are words to speak in the face of loneliness, fear, delight, or confusion.

I hope they work for you. I hope you’re inspired to write some of your own – and chant them, in your own voice.

This book is full of images for abstract things. “Come Happiness” sees happiness as a raindrop or a heartbeat or a breeze. “Time Spells” suggests that time you want to slow down “stretch like a sleepy dog, slow and languid and warm with flickering light.”

I like “Chant Against the Dark,” though I wouldn’t want to suggest it to a very young child. This stanza, for example, might give them ideas, making things worse:

Don’t come close, dark.
Don’t breathe on me.
When the lamp clicks off,
don’t creak and shift
like some wild-eyed horse
waiting for its rider.

But for an older reader? Beautiful!

Some others I love are “Chant to Repair a Friendship”:

Come, friend, forgive the past;
I was wrong and I am grieving.

,

“Sleep Charm”:

One by one, those cares will drop
from you like stones
into deep water.
Slip from your dayskin
and swim, shimmering,
into the dream beyond the dream.

,

“How to Find a Poem”:

Wake with a dream-filled head

,

“Invitation to Lost Things”:

Come out, come out
from your hidden places,
hair clips, homework, phones.

,

“Blessing on the Smell of Dog”:

May his scent seep through
perfumed shampoos
like the rich tang of mud in spring.”

,

“Teacher”:

I loved how I hated numbers, had always
hated them, would continue to hate them
until I saw them sprout from your hands.

,

“Silly Love Song”

If you are the Maserati,
then I am the oil change.

,

and “I Find Peace”:

I find peace in the lazy doze of Saturdays
and in the beat of a pounding run.

The ones most perfect for teens are “Lament for Teddy”:

Where is the one
whose mute love followed me
all the days of my life?
The one I boxed up and packed away?
The one I thought I didn’t need?
The one I felt / I had outgrown?

,

“Where Is My Body?”:

Where is my body?
The one I’m used to,
slim and ordinary as a twig?…

Where is the body
that housed an
Olympic gymnast,
sumo wrestler,
pirate,
dancer;
all waiting, poised
in endless possibility?

When did I grow
awkward, lumpish,
a stranger in my own skin —
each day revealing
some fresh freakishness?

,

and “Lament for My Old Life”

I hated to leave that house,
fought it tooth and nail.

.

Here is poetry that will make you think and will help you look at the world differently. Perhaps it will motivate you to put your wishes into words.

joycesidman.com
sacredbee.com
hmhbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/what_the_heart_knows.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Giving Thanks, edited by Katherine Paterson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Poetry 0

Giving Thanks

Poems, Prayers, and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving

Edited and with reflections by Katherine Paterson
Illustrations by Pamela Dalton

Handprint Books (Chronicle), San Francisco, 2013. 53 pages.

This beautiful book is appropriate for children and adults, and is perfect as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. I went through it slowly, reading a page a day as part of my devotional time. If I had kids living with me now, it would have been nice to read a page aloud at the dinner table.

What’s included are prayers and poems from all over the world, going back hundreds of years, all with a theme of giving thanks.

The section headings are “Gather Around the Table” (Thanks for food), “A Celebration of Life” (Thanks for nature), “The Spirit Within” (Thanks for personal blessings), and “Circle of Community” (Thanks for loved ones).

The book is decorated with exquisite and intricate cut-paper illustrations. Even though they are pictures of the cut-paper illustrations, I found myself wanting to handle the pages delicately. I can’t imagine having the patience and care to create such fine work! The reader feels privileged to get to enjoy it.

This isn’t a long book, and the format is that of a picture book, which is probably why it is marketed as a children’s book. But what a nice reminder and method for giving thanks.

terabithia.com
pameladaltonpapercutting.com
chroniclekids.com

I’m reviewing this book today in honor of Thanksgiving and Nonfiction Monday, hosted today at Jean Little Library.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.