Poetry Review #2

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lewis, J. Patrick. 2005. PLEASE BURY ME IN THE LIBRARY. Orlando: Gulliver Books, Harcourt. ISBN 0152163875

2. PLOT SUMMARY
PLEASE BURY ME IN THE LIBRARY is collection of 15 children friendly poems by J. Patrick Lewis. The poems are geared toward book lovers and reading, with works on libraries, books, language and words, and literature. The poems include What If Books Had Different Names, Flea-ting Fame, Necessary Gardens, Eating Alphabet Soup, Great, Good, Bad, Please Bury Me in the Library, A Classic, The Big-Word Girl, Reading in the Dark, Pictures, Pictures, Pictures, Three Haiku, Summer Reading at the Beach, Conversation on a Leaf, Are You a Book Person, and Ab-so-lu-tas-ti-cal. The illustrations are provided by newcomer Kyle M. Stone.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This is a great collections of light verse poems by J. Patrick Lewis. He uses clever wordplay, humor, and nonsense, while introducing the reader to various forms of poetry, including the narrative poem, a haiku, an eight-word acrostic, free verse, and rhyming quatrains and couplets. Even his Acknowledgments at the end of the book are put into poetic form with an aabb end rhyme. He includes a Contents page with the title and page number for each poem. The author was inspired by other famous poets, such as Edward Lear, X.J. Kennedy, and Lewis Carroll.

Lewis shows a great sense of imagination with his poems. For example, What If Books Had Different Names is a fun take on classic literature for children (“Furious George, Goodnight Noon”). Necessary Gardens makes a line of poetry out of each letter in the word LANGUAGE. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures is a double dactyls poem beginning with the nonsense first line, “Higgledy-piggledy.” Great, Good, Bad is a poem of nonsense. Finally, Lewis cleverly composing three haiku poems in Three Haiku. One includes: Difficult writing/Assignment: “The Story of /My Life: A Haiku”

I like that readers learn about other books in this book of poems. Lewis mentions many books throughout his poems including Caterpillars: Fascinating Fauna, Frankenstein, The Field Mouse’s Guide to Midnight, Godzilla Meets Tooth Fairy, and of course all of the ones mentioned in What If Books Had Different Names.

This is Kyle M. Stone’s picture-book debut and what a debut! His illustrations are rich and dark, with a childlike quality to them. The pictures are done in acrylic paint and mixed media. They created an added dimension to the poems with funny details. The reader is first attracted to the book because of it cover, depicting mice reading a book in a library. On the front cover, we see the picture from the perspective as if we were standing in front of the mice. On the back cover we get the same scene, but from the perspective of standing behind the mice and reading along with them.

The illustrations are fun, funny, and full of details. An example is the picture for The Big-Word Girl, which is about Elaine reading the Webster’s Dictionary while at the movies with her friend. Stone depicts her friend as a monster! In addition, if the reader looks closely, the same little boy is found on the pages for two poems, Necessary Gardens and Great, Good, Bad. He is in blue pajamas reading a book. In the scene for the Three Haiku, we see the shadow of Frankenstein behind the little boy reading the book Frankenstein. Finally, Stone shows great imagination when he painted a little girl flying above the world in a paper airplane for Ab-so-lu-tas-ti-cal.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
School Library Journal
“A semi-swell collection of 16 poems celebrating books, reading, language, and libraries…The tone is generally light, with the last few entries turning more to wonder and metaphor ("A good book is a kind/Of person with a mind/Of her own..."). Usually printed one per spread, the poems are accompanied by richly dark artwork…The Lewis hallmarks are all here–clever wordplay, humor, nonsense, rhyme–though the collection doesn't have quite the spot-on snap of his best stuff…Lee Bennett Hopkins's Good Books, Good Times! (HarperCollins, 1990) and Wonderful Words (S & S, 2004), which include offerings on the same subject from many fine authors, would partner in a nice balance with Lewis's frothier nonsense.”

Booklist
“This homage to reading salutes all the essential elements: letters, words, books. Lewis' poetry is continually clever, whether pithily summing up children's classics (a book that is excitedly read by a kid of 6 to another kid of 63) or capturing the thrill of reading in the dark…Despite the picture-book format, it will take children older than the preschool crowd to appreciate the wordplay, which on occasion is quite sophisticated…The acrylic and mixed media artwork (see cover, this issue) adds whimsy to the words. Case in point, a bibbed lamb eating the Dr. Seuss special.”

5. CONNECTIONS
*Activities with this book:
-Have the children volunteer to take turns reading each poem.
-Read Necessary Gardens and then let children make up their own anagram poem, using the letters of their name.
-The following is an additional list of activities written by Mary Lou Meerson, an educational consultant who lives in San Diego, California:
1. Have the children look carefully at the front and back of the jacket. Invite their observations.
2. Discuss the title page illustration. Ask the children if they have ever heard the phrase “She had her nose buried in a book.” This girl has her whole body buried.
3. After reading Great, Good, Bad (p. 10), put those categories on a chalkboard or poster paper and have the students nominate books or stories for each cate­gory. Encourage debate!
4. After reading Pictures, Pictures, Pictures (p. 20), check out of the library a variety of wordless picture books. Working in small groups, have the children write a narrative for one of the wordless books and present it to the class.

I loved this book.

Happy Reading!
Lonnie