Staff Picks: Books
Staff-recommended reading from the
KPL catalog.
What caught my eye was the cover . . . it looks like summer. Mielo So’s watercolor painting of a beach scene promises lovely things inside. Here are the first and last couplets of the poem called “What the Waves Say”:
“Shimmer and run, catch the sun.
Ripple thin, catch the wind.
Roll green, rise and lean—
wake and roar and strike the shore.”
Kate Coombs’ poems are a mix of playfulness and mystery; Water Sings Blue is a lovely collection that is just right for reading aloud with kids.
Book
Water Sings Blue
9780811872843
Even though the cover of House Held Up By Trees has a melancholy look, the soft and gentle words tell a story that feels like a magical secret . . . an abandoned house that is lifted off its sterile foundation by the trees growing up around it. Poet Ted Kooser and illustrator Jon Klassen have created a quiet and thoughtful picture book that deserves to be seen beyond the walls of the Children’s Room.
Book
House Held Up By Trees
9780763651077
As others on the library blog have written, April is National Poetry Month. While I was in college, one of my dearest friends introduced me to Mary Oliver, who became one of my favorite poets. Maxine Kumin, another of America’s great poets, described Oliver as an “indefatigable guide to the natural world.” Oliver is known to acquire much of her inspiration from walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and writes almost exclusively about nature. KPL has a nice collection of her work.
This video features Oliver reading a few of her poems, including one of my favorites, “Wild Geese”.
Other poets I recommend include Anna Akhmatova, Fleur Adcock, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Dorothy Parker.
Book
Why I Wake Early
0807068764
Sally May Harrison is a slave. Pa learns that Master is planning to sell her and her brother, Abraham, so Pa plans for the whole family to run away from the plantation. They encounter many terrors and tragedy en route. Ultimately, Sally’s family finds and lives with a tribe of Seminole people.
I was moved by the poetry at the beginning of each chapter of My Name is Sally Little Song, by Brenda Woods. Sally makes up songs, like her Mama taught her to do. With very few words, her songs capture the essence of what she and her family experience.
Pa tells the family they are leaving “day after t’morrow afore sunrise,” and to keep it a secret…”send no one a farewell look with your eyes.” The following chapter starts with:
“Gotta look down
Into the dirt all day
Or my brown eyes
Is sure to give us away”
Sally’s family travels at night, in hopes of escaping notice. When they get to swampland, her poem both describes the feeling in the swamp and foreshadows danger:
Grass wet
Beneath my feet
Owls say
Hoot
Night bugs fly
Snakes wriggle
Gators chomp
Swamp
Woods is the author of a 2003 Coretta Scott King Honor book, The Red Rose Box.
Book
My Name is Sally Little Song
0399243127