Paradise Book Report

Bibliography: Hoberman, Mary Ann and Linda Winston. The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination (A Poetry Speaks Experience) . Ill. by Barbara Fortin. Naperville: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2009. ISBN: 978-1402225178 Summary:  The Tree That Time Built is an ingenious interdisciplinary anthology of nature poetry united by the common thread of Darwin’s discoveries of evolutionary principles. Classic and contemporary poets (such as Mary Oliver, Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Hans Christian Anderson, Rumi, Joyce Sidman, Carl Sandberg, Eve Merriam, and Joseph Bruchac, to name a few) offer meditations on the remarkable adaptations of living organisms and celebrate the wonders of the natural world. Nine thematic sections divide the poems into topics with poetic headings such as “Oh, Fields of Wonder,” “The Sea is Our Mother,” “ Think Like a Tree,” “Some Primal Termite,” “Everything That Lives Wants to Fly,” “I Am the Family Face,”

Bibliography: Engle, Margarita. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir . New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015. ISBN: 978-1481435222 Summary:  Margarita Engle recounts her childhood flying between her home in Los Angeles and her abuelita’s home in Cuba where she spends her summers. A precocious and curious young girl, Margarita is fascinated by the magical world of nature, especially the dancing plants and exotic farm life she encounters in Cuba. In Los Angeles, she dreams of flying horses and covers her walls with poems. While her mother is Cuban, her father is American and the son of Ukrainian immigrants who fled to the United States. Margarita drifts between two worlds, two cultures, spending sunny summers in Cuba until the Cold War interrupts her travels and separates her from her Cuban relatives, causing her mother to become a “ghost,” or an immigrant with no country. When the “Cuban” Missile Crisis passes without erupting into nuclear war, Margarita is reliev

Bibliograpy: Alexander, Kwame. The Undefeated . Ill by Kadir Nelson. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. ISBN: 978-1328780966 Summary:  The Undefeated is a stirring and empowering ode to the black artists, athletes, dreamers, and icons of American history. Kwame Alexander’s stunning poem is joined by Kadir Nelson’s rich oil illustrations depicting important historical figures such as Fredrick Douglass, Billie Holiday, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, the soldiers of the United States Colored Troops who fought in the Civil War, those who lived and died on slave ships in the Middle Passage, as well as victims of police brutality such as Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and Trayvon Martin. A powerful afterword written by the author places the poem’s occasion in context, explaining that it is a tribute to both the birth of his second daughter and the election of Barack Obama, noting that much of American history has been left out of textbooks, ignored, or forgotten. By citing examples of bl