Coming October 1, 2024

ISBN: 978-1728492100

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Poems selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters

With illustrations by Mercè López

Carolrhoda Books

Poets weigh in on childhood boo-boos and faux pas that still haunt them.

“My mother used to tell me, / ‘Think before you do.’ / I wish I would have stopped and thought / before I used the glue.” If readers are more disquieted than soothed by the notion that they, too, may wind up agonizing over flubs years, even decades, later, most of the poets at least try to point to positive life lessons learned. Not that they’re always convincing: Allan Wolf, for instance, claims that he learned to forgive himself for a soccer own goal he nonetheless still remembers scoring in fourth grade, and Tabatha Yeatts’ memories of performing well on a summer camp stage despite blowing off the rehearsals comes off as more of a humblebrag. Still, Linda Sue Park’s embarrassment at mispronouncing a word in class, and Jaime Adoff’s for insisting on pitching when he could barely get a baseball to the plate, had salutary results on their respective self-images, while Margarita Engle learned the value of thinking for herself after cutting off her braids at a schoolmate’s suggestion, as did Kim Rogers (Wichita) after playing the role of a white settler in an Oklahoma Land Run Day celebration. López reflects the multiracial cast of the contributors in her bright and energetic views of young people amid diverse family or other groups.

Comforting reminders that nobody’s perfect, infused with lessons large and small. (about the poets) (Picture book poetry. 6-9)

★Latham and Waters (Dictionary for a Better World) collaborate anew with this selection of 20 edifying poems that invite readers, per an introduction, to “experience through poetry the real-life mistakes from some people who are brave and open and growing—just like you.” Poems from Jorge Argueta, Linda Sue Park, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Yolen, and the editors, among others, are categorized into four sections (“Oopsie-Daisy!,” “Stuff Happens,” “Blessings in Disguise,” and “What Have I Done”), each work accompanied by a prose paragraph detailing the lesson learned. Some are laugh-aloud, as when Darren Sardelli’s speaker describes gluing their uncle to a toilet seat. Kim Rogers’s uniquely powerful work, meanwhile, involves a speaker’s schoolyard experience with Oklahoma’s Land Run Day: “Here I was a Native girl/ celebrating the day her Wichita ancestors’ land/ was stolen.” Dynamic mixed-media artwork from López (Sylvie and the Wolf) offers energetic visual support for each poem in an anthology packed with a broad spectrum of human emotion and experience. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 7–11. Authors’ agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. Illustrator’s agent: Mela Bolinao, MB Artists. (Oct.)

An anthology packed with a broad spectrum of human emotion and experience.