Paradise Book Report

Bibliography: Hopkins, Lee Bennett, ed. World Make Way: New Poems Inspired by Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art . New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2018. ISBN: 978-1419728457 Summary:  In World Make Way , eighteen poets present new poems specifically written in response to eighteen works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The drawings and paintings span the centuries and include a diverse representation of world cultures including American, Colombian, Italian, French, Austrian, Japanese, Syrian, Mexican, Native American, Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian artists. The poets themselves are also diverse in culture and poetic style, each interpreting a different work of art in their own way. The foreword, written by editor Lee Bennett Hopkins, explores Leonardo Da Vinci’s quote that “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Hopkins encourages readers to experiment with their own interpretations of art through poetr

Bibliography: Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming . New York: Puffin Books, 2014. ISBN: 978-0147515827 Summary:  Brown Girl Dreaming is the breathtakingly tender verse memoir of Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood in Ohio, South Carolina, and New York in the 1960s and 70s. She recounts intimate family moments with vivid clarity against the backdrop of social change, tracing her journey to becoming a writer as she grows up between the North and the segregated South, mining deep truths from the rich soil of her life on topics such as family, faith, memory, tragedy, freedom, friendship, identity, courage, creativity, and revolution. The book begins with a diagram of her family tree and an epitaph from Langston Hughes. The 320 pages of poems are divided into five sections entitled, i am born ; the stories of south carolina run like rivers ; followed the sky’s mirrored constellation to freedom ; deep in my heart, i do believe ; and ready to change the world . The book ends with an author’s

Bibliography: Koertge, Ron. The Brimstone Journals . Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2001. ISBN 9780763617424. Summary:  The Brimstone Journals is a haunting verse novel about the 2001 senior class of Branston High School. This collection of poems alternates between the voices of 15 characters and builds an unsettling portrait of the rage, longing, bigotry, dreams, and desperation seething beneath the surface of this graduating class. Hovering above each poem is its author’s handwritten name. The diverse cast of characters share their inner thoughts about escaping from controlling boyfriends, protesting environmental destruction, avoiding creepy step-fathers, dealing with teachers, disappointing their parents, tentatively making friends, scoring with girls and guys, coming out, getting rejected, feeling ugly and fat, suffering at the hands of bullies, playing music and video games… and making them all pay. Boyd is an angry young man who hates his abusive father and his classmates, and af