Experiencing first love, dealing with crushes, and mending a broken heart are some of the topics of love and life captured in these poems, told from the point of view of young adults of both sexes and diverse ethnicities.
Poetry
Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers
In Japan, as a provincial governor, his wife, and daughter Yuki, followed by 1,000 attendants, travel the historic Tokaido Road to the Shogun’s palace in Edo. Yuki keeps up with her lessons by writing poems describing the journey.
Diego: Bigger Than Life
Diego Rivera’s energy, physique, love for women, and work were all “bigger than life.” Born in a small Mexican mining town in 1886,he drew his way through childhood, entered art school at ageten, and later traveled throughout Europe, studying the great masters andimitating their techniques. When he returned to Mexico in 1921, he foundhis own unique style. He began painting the poetry of the common people –working, suffering, fighting, seeking joy, living, and dying — on thewalls of public buildings. His murals were passionate, controversial, political,and enormous — like the painter himself.
Troy Thompson’s Excellent Peotry Book
Troy Thompson, a Grade 6 student, in trying to understand the art of poetry, as he stumbles over the Japanese form of ‘Haiku’, the ballad, the limerick and the sonnet. At the end of the year, Troy’s poetry has improved and his respect for his teacher has grown too! An entertaining introduction to poetry, which can be read as a narrative. It is divided into assignments for the reader to follow and participate in and is peppered by Troy’s doodles and margin comments to his teacher. Ms Kranke obviously has quite a soft spot for this cheeky young student, and encourages him on his way, whether writing of his love for his school sweetheart, Kylie, or revealing the heroic and moving death of his policeman father.
Letters from Rifka
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.
Julia
A story of a girl, Julia Burgos, born into a humble Puerto Rican family in 1914. With beautiful illustrations, it re-creates the time in which she grew up, and narrates how Julia Burgos became one of Puerto Rico’s and Latin America’s most beloved poets.