Wednesday, June 1, 2016

POETRY BOOK - What are you Glad about? What are you Mad about? by Judith Viorst

Poems for When a Person Needs a Poem
Illustrated by Lee White
2016, Atheneum Books for Young REaders
HC $17.99
102 pgs.
Goodreads rating: 3.83 (43 ratings)
My rating: 2
EndpapersL Solid Rust 

My comments:  I feel so badly not really liking a book of Judith Viorst's poetry!  I loved If I Were in Charge of the World, have read it over and over and shared poems with lots and lots of kids.  But after reading through these poems once I felt pretty "blah" about them, so I read them through again today.  I still feel blah about them....some seemed forced, some I found really hard to find any rhythm, words were put in odd sequences in order to fit some sort of rhyming pattern, and some of the thoughts and thinking don't seem to gel with the thoughts and thinking of the kids I've worked with for the last ten years or just made me roll my eyes.  I didn't give it a 1...I'll give Ms. Viorst the benefit of the doubt because she's always been high on my list...but I'm not keen on these poems at all.  And I feel really, really bad about that!

Goodreads:

I liked this poem a bit, the last one in the book, but even some of it (cadence, wording, rhythm) didn't do it for me::

In Between

Too old to need a night-light and
Too young to drive a car.
Too young for War and Peace, too old
For Where the Wild Things Are.
Too young to drink a latte and
Too old for sippy cups.
I'm in between and sometimes
I can't tell the downs from ups.

Too old to cry at flu shots and
Too young for a tattoo.
Too young for movies rated R.
Too old for Scooby-Doo.
Too old for booster seats, too young
For my own credit card.
I'm in between and often
In between is very hard.

Too young to give up whining and
Too old to run amok.
Too young for Don Giovanni and
Too old for Donald Duck.
Too old to keep my teddy bear,
Too young to let him go.
I'm in between and waiting
For the rest of me to grow.

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