Irene Gach Lá

BIBLIOGRAPHY Janeczko, Paul. 1998. THAT SWEET DIAMOND: BASEBALL POEMS. Ill. by Carole Katchen. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0689807350 . CRITICAL ANALYSIS That Sweet Diamond: Baseball Poems is a love story to the game of baseball. It perfectly captures the experience of attending a game, from the hot dog vendors to the plays on the field to the uber-fan. There are nineteen poems, each paired with a pastel illustration by Carole Kitchen on the facing page. The illustrations have an other-worldly quality in an impressionistic format which breathes life into the movement of the game. The poems are a combination of formats, including both rhyming and nonrhyme. The rhythmn is strong, with the beats of the poem appropriately matching the action Janeczko is trying to convery in each baseball scene. Kids will especially love the poem about spit, as well as the one about the old lady who sits in Section 7, Row 1, Seat 3. Peppered throughout the poems...

BIBLIOGRAPHY Franco, Betsy, ed. (2008) Falling Hard: 100 Love Poems by Teenagers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press. CRITICAL ANALYSIS Falling Hard is a poetry compilation written by teenagers and anthologized by Betsy Franco. The poems are free verse and the kids provide a mosaic of diversity. The poems are honest, sometimes graphic. Kids share their emotions across gender, sexual orientation and race. It’s a heartfelt glimpse into the deep emotional well of the teenage mind. Adult readers will walk away with an appreciation of the complexities of teenage emotion, and perhaps a bit of nostalgia for their own memories of the teen years. The poems were primarily from kids in the United States and were submitted via e-mail to Franco. The names and ages are given with the poems. SPOTLIGHT POEM AND LESSON These poems are for high schoolers. I would not share them with a middle school or elementary audience. They are mature in both nature and theme....

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, Kwame. 2014. CROSSOVER. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780544107717. CRITICAL ANALYSIS I had the opportunity to listen to Kwame Alexander speak at the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio in April 2014. He spoke on the impetus for Crossover: to write a verse novel for boys. And not just any boy, but the sports-loving, poetry-hating, I-don’t-go-to-the-library sort of boy. I was completely intrigued and knew I had to read this book, because he’s absolutely correct in noticing the gap in this genre’s niche: most verse novels are written to appeal to girls, and boys who do read verse novels are already vested in their own reading identity. But could he pull it off? I will freely admit, although I loved the cover, that I was a bit skeptical of the goal. I’m a middle school librarian, so I really wanted to meet the verse novel which could hook my sports-loving, poetry-hating, I-don’t-go-to-the-library boys into reading i...