Book Review of I am the Book by Lee Bennet Hopkins

 

1.      Bibliography

Hopkins, L. B. 2011. I am the book. (Yayo). Holiday House. ISBN: 9780823421190

2.      Plot Summary

In this book of poems, you get to see different poets and how they want to showcase their love for reading.  Each poem in this book is about how important reading is and how it can open your mind to different ideas and possibilities.  You get the viewpoint of different poets and each of them has a way to tell the audience what reading means to them.  In some cases, reading can take you to a different place in your mind, others know that reading is the key to opening a whole new world to explore.

3.      Critical Analysis

Hopkins and other poets give this new meaning to the importance of reading.  The poems feature good rhythm with sentences and phrases flowing easily into the next one.  Most of the poems have rhyming words but a few do not, but the meaning is not lost.  In one poem you have some alliteration that makes for a nice flow, “whispering mysteries, history’s shout, the wisdom of wizards, the songs of the ages, all wonders of wandering wonderful pages.”  You have some great word play, “words nudging/one/another like bumper cars at a fair.” Nudging one another are close together separated by backslashes to make the words feel like they are close together.  You can feel the poets’ emotions in this book and how passionate they are about reading.  Some poems have words coming down the page instead of next to each other.  You can pick up on each stanza because they are separated by a space in the poem.  One poem has words alike next to each other like “tick-tock, ding-dong, bing-bong” they follow each other down the page.  At the end of the book each author has a little note at the back of the book that talks about them and their work in poetry.

4.      Review Excerpt(s)

In this picture-book collection from veteran anthologist Hopkins, 13 well-known children’s poets celebrate how books can take readers on wild adventures ( I storm / toward shackled screams / of a kidnapped damsel ), as well as how plain words can reveal the surprising drama in ordinary things, even the rhyming sounds of a clock: tick-tock / ding-dong / bing-bong. Karla Kuskin speaks about the wonders of wandering / wonderful pages and the nonsense and knowledge the come tumbling out. And in another selection, Kristine O Connell George writes, riding home from the library, / don t need a window seat. / Got a great new book to read, / eleven more beneath my feet. The whimsical, light-toned acrylic artwork extends the metaphors with witty, fantastical transformations of books: in one scene, a dark-blue book cover becomes an ocean, where you can dive in the sea of words and swim. Fun for sharing with preschoolers, this will also spark discussion in grade-school writing and art classes. Notes about each poet are appended. (Booklist-Hazel Rochman) –Booklist

5.      Connections

*I would like to do a poem Friday, and each week we look at a new poem.  Talk about the meaning behind the poem and what it means to us.

*You can share this book with students and challenge them to draw a picture of one poem out of the book based on their imagery skills.