Biblio Reviews

At 464 pages, Angie Thomas's  The Hate U Give  (2017)   is a surprisingly quick read for a text that deals with such a heavy and heated topic: the fatal shooting of an unarmed, black male at the hands of a white cop and the surviving witness who has to cope. "Tragically timely" (to quote Adam Silvera), the novel is another entry into what is unfortunately, in the lyrics of Smokey Norful, the "same old sad song." Nearly twenty years ago, Jacqueline Woodson first tackled the same subject in her typically poetic and poignant style in the novel  If You Come Softly (1998). It is a story of first love, an interracial one between fifteen-year-old Jeremiah and Ellie who meet at their private school. They have to deal with society's response to their relationship. In the end, this modern day Romeo and Juliet comes to an abrupt end when Jeremiah is fatally shot by police. Woodson continues these characters' story with Behind You (2004) which focuses on the imp...

The story of Sharon Creech's Jack from  Love That Dog  (2001) continues. Early in his school year, Jack reveals to his teacher that 1) he hates cats and 2) his college professor Uncle Bill does not believe that the poems Jack had written in the previous school year are "real" poems because they are short, lack rhyme, a regular meter, symbols, metaphor, onomatopoeia, and alliteration. Thank goodness Jack has Miss Stretchberry as his teacher again because she tells him that all those elements his uncle mentioned are not requirements. A poet writes according to his own images, rhythms, and sometimes chooses elements like onomatopoeia and alliteration to  enrich  their poems. And with that, Creech, again, takes us on Jack's journey and growth as a writer and person during this fourth grade school year. This time around, readers learn a bit more about Jack's home life, why he hates  that  cat, and how he finally does move on from the loss of his beloved pet,...