Poetry Month reads

5 stars

ZJ's friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.

5 stars

"A novel in verse about an Asante boy who is captured and taken from his village during the nineteenth century."--

3 stars

Everything Comes Next contains Naomi Shihab Nye's most beloved poems, including "Famous," "A Valentine for Ernest Mann," "Kindness," and "Gate A-4," as well as new, unpublished poems. It is an introduction to the poet's work for new readers, as well as a comprehensive edition for classrooms.

"Seventh-grader Selah Godfrey knows that to be "normal" she has to keep her feelings tightly controlled when people are around, but after hitting a fellow student, she needs to figure out just what makes her different--and why that is ok. Told in verse."--

Best friends and sixth-graders Bumble and Lizard go on a quest to save the severely endangered language, Guernésiais, partly to impress Bumble's linguist mother.

4 stars

In the tradition of Shel Silverstein, these poems bring a fresh new twist to the classic dilemmas of childhood as well as a perceptive eye to the foibles of modern family life. Full of clever wordplay and bright visual gags--and toilet humor to spare--these twenty-three rhyming poems make for an ideal read-aloud experience.

Thirteen-year-old Rain, who struggles with low self-esteem, must overcome sadness after her older brother Xander is severely beaten up at a frat party, but through the help of an after-school circle group, Rain finds the courage to help herself and her family heal.

"Twelve-year-old Malian lives with her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation during the COVID-19 pandemic"--

"Cuban-born eleven-year-old Oriol lives in Santa Barbara, California, where she struggles to belong. But most of the time that's okay, because she enjoys helping her parents care for the many injured animals at their veterinary clinic. Then Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature, moves to town, and aspiring writer Oriol finds herself opening up. As she begins to create a world of words for herself, Oriol learns...

4.3 stars

Told in rhyming verse, a stone is considered from a variety of environmental and emotional perspectives, as it sits where it is, surrounded by grass, dirt, and water, an unchanging certainty in the world.