Paradise Book Report

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 re...

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 o...

Bibliography: Singer, Marilyn. Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths . Ill. by Josée Masse. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2016. ISBN: 978-0803739925 Summary: In this collection of poems, Marilyn Singer briefly recounts twelve Greek myths using reverso poetry, a type of poem invented by Singer herself. After an introductory poem entitled “The Age of Marvelous Myths,” the poems tell the tales of Pandora, Arachne and Athena, King Midas, Perseus and Medusa, Narcissus and Echo, and more. Below each poem is a short synopsis of the myth--just enough to get the gist. The book concludes with a poem called “Gods and Mortals” followed by an author’s note sharing background information about Greek mythology and the unique style of reverso poetry.  Analysis: If you’ve never heard of reverso poetry, it is a clever style of poem construction in which there are two versions of the same poem: one is read from top to bottom, and the second poem arranges the same lines in reverse orde...

Bibliography: Zoboi, Ibi and Yusef Salaam. Punching the Air . Ill. by Omar T. Pasha. New York: Balzer+Bray, 2020. ISBN: 978-0062996480 Summary: Amal Shahid, a young, Black artist and poet at an arts high school, finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time, irrevocably changing the trajectory of his life. A confrontation in a gentrifying neighborhood lands him in juvenile detention for a crime that he didn’t commit. After he faces trial where Ms. Rinaldi, his AP art teacher, serves as a poor character witness, he must survive the dehumanization of being processed and incarcerated. Amal survives on correspondence with Zenobia, a classmate who he never got the nerve to ask out, and they share letters and drawings though the mail. He cautiously forms an alliance with several other young men to watch each other’s backs, and they share a sense of brotherhood as they follow their program of classes and avoid trouble with a white supremacist guard. The collection of poems, divided into ...

Bibliography:  McCullough, Joy. Blood Water Paint . New York: Dutton Books, 2018. ISBN: 978-0735232112 Summary: Blood Water Paint , based on the true story of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi, portrays the struggle of a brilliant young woman who must endure the misogyny of her times. After the death of her mother, she must either join a convent as a nun or stay with her father grinding pigment in his studio. Although she herself is responsible for his success, correcting and embellishing his masterpieces with her superior skill, her father claims credit and treats her not as an apprentice but as a mere servant and model. When a prominent artist visits her father’s studio and sexually assaults her, Artemisia must draw strength from the memory of her mother’s stories of Susanna and Judith, strong women from biblical tales who become the subjects of two of Gentileschi’s most famous works. When Artemisia accuses the artist of his crime, she must defend herself before a court o...

Bibliography: Florian, Douglas. on the wing. New York, Voyager Books, 2000. ISBN: 978-0152023669.  Summary: In this collection of bird poems and paintings by Douglas Florian, 21 species of birds receive whimsical poetic tributes paired with equally playful paintings. On the wing features the egret, the green catbird, the vulture, quetzal, and whooping crane to name a few. Readers will recognize some familiar feathers while others will be strange new friends rendered in words and watercolors. Florian captures both the unique appearance and behaviors of the birds in his short, rhyming poems.  Analysis: In Douglas Florian’s on the wing , he celebrates various birds with clever rhymes and quirky, surrealistic art. His similes, such as the Andean cock-of-the-rock’s “crest that’s as round as a clock,” are depicted literally in his paintings, the bird’s red crest marked with numbers and clock hands. Inside the head of the hill mynah, whose voice “can mimic anything,” appears a reel-...

Bibliography: Bowles, David. They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-1947627079. Summary: They Call Me Güero is a portrait of life in the Rio Grande valley of Texas, told from the perspective of a young Mexican-American middle schooler known affectionately as Güero. The poems document childhood memories of growing up on both sides of the border, celebrating holidays with family traditions, weddings, quinceañeras, basketball games, cookouts with carne asada, folktales retold by tios and abuelas, making tamales at Christmas, getting bullied at school for being too white-skinned, texting, gaming, making friends with Los Bobbys, and feeling pride in his own culture and identity. The text is filled with Spanish phrases, and a glossary at the end of the book translates dozens of common words and expressions. Analysis: The poems in They Call Me Güero create a diverse mural of Latinx identity, demonstrating the complexity and differences within t...