Speak to Me : (And I Will Listen between the Lines)

Rating:
Summary: Poetry slam dunk
Review: In spite of the nationwide acceptance of the verse novel, kids in general don't get a whole lot of poetry in their daily lives. There's hip-hop of course, but either it's a little too old for your average elementary school kid in terms of subject matter or its some hokey made-for-children junk concocted by white middle class joes living in the suburbs and presented within an educational context. Poetry itself, in its purest form, is a difficult form of writing. There are so many bad poetry books for children out there that the good ones tend to fall between the cracks. It is the dearest wish of my heart (right next to the dream that someday they'll come up with Godiva flavored gum) that "Speak To Me (And I Will Listen Between The Lines)" be remembered for years to come. A funny, sad, thoughtful picture book following the musings of six urban third grade schoolchildren in the course of a day at school, the book has a voice entirely of its own. More importantly, it fills a real gap in children's libraries everywhere. Though you may have to introduce it to them first, once discovered "Speak To Me" should garner itself a fair hoard of fans. If there's any justice in the world anyway.

There's Malcolm, Brianna, Lamont, Rica, Tyrell, and Neecy. And before you even get to the title page, you can see Malcom leaning on the top of the monkey bars on the playground wistfully contemplating the city in the poem, "The Playground In the Morning Before School". This quiet sober reflection about a child's love of a moment of pleasant solitude artfully begins the book. From thereon in every fear, hateful thought, desire, jealous moment, and feeling of admiration is written in the first person child's point of view. Tyrell angrily begins his day on the wrong foot with "I Don't Care" in which he states matter-o-fact, "I don't care about anything this day / And you can't make me". Rica thinks about her father coming to pick her up after school in the interesting, "My Real Daddy". And Brianna, dumped as a friend by Neecy, has an angry day of thinly controlled jealousy and self-pity. The book looks solely at how the kids feel while in school, not remarking on their home lives (apart from Rica's father) or why they act the ways they do. More, it shows how they feel from moment to moment, making for powerful reading. I would be amiss in not mentioning illustrator Amy June Bates' fabulous illustrations too. Whether a kid is stretching her leg across a lunch table seat or doing some double dutch, these are realistic individual kids that you really come to care for.

The book reminded me quite a lot of the novel, "Bronx Masquerade" by Nikki Grimes. But unlike "Bronx Masquerade", a teen collection of poems that relies heavily on contemporary slang and phrases, this collection is somewhat timeless. What's even most important is that the book doesn't make it seem as if these poems were actually written by the children themselves. That frees the author up to create poems with a little more sophistication. The poems are just stanzas that perfectly capture how certain kids feel at certain times. You also find yourself getting wrapped up in the characters' struggles and lives. I don't know what Tyrell's family situation is at home, but I get the feeling that it's not perfectly happy. Similarly, I felt bad for Brianna who kept standing alone wishing that Neecy would be her friend again. This book, more than anything else, is what a teacher sees every day. And with many of these poems (like "My Real Daddy") you need to read between the lines to figure out what these kids are really dealing with. It's heady fare for a picture book.

Poetry will never be declared as popular an art form as prose. But with the help of book like "Read To Me", I think some kids will be able to find poetry to be a way to deal with their daily lives and struggles. It's a great book and an even greater collection. A book that deserves greater attention.