Poetry Archives - BookDragon

They Call Her Fregona: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Mexican American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

David Bowles continues his eloquent, autobiographical narration of the "border kid" experience in They Call Her Fregona, a captivating novel-in-verse companion to his 2019 Pura Belpré Honor book, They Call Me Güero. Joanna Padilla, the titular fregona, is a "tough girl," first introduced in Güero. After Joanna saved Güero from...

Inheritance: A Visual Poem by Elizabeth Acevedo, illustrated by Andrea Pippins [in Shelf Awareness]

31 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Elizabeth Acevedo, the author of the multi-award-winning The Poet X and Clap When You Land, is also a National Poetry Slam Champion. Inheritance, her most famously performed poem, is here set in print, enhanced with stupendous art by author/illustrator Andrea Pippins (Young, Gifted and Black). Hair – and how...

African Town by Irene Latham and Charles Waters [in Booklist]

14 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

Fourteen voices (each embodying a specific poetic form!) – enlivened by 14 performers – take turns bearing witness in this novel in verse. Perspectives shift among the enslavers, the enablers to such inhumanity, their victims, and their descendants, revealing decades from capture to post-Civil War...

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson [in School Library Journal]

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

*STARRED REVIEW The “Before” was when ZJ’s football-playing father was “everybody’s … next great hero,” but to ZJ, world-famous “Zachariah 44!” was “just my dad … which means / he’s my every single thing.” For most of 12-year-old ZJ’s life, Daddy was the very best parent,...

If I Tell You the Truth by Jasmin Kaur [in School Library Journal]

22 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Poetry, Repost, South Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Introduced in Jasmin Kaur’s debut, When You Ask Me Where I’m Going, mother Kiran and daughter Sahaara return in this timely hybrid prose/verse novel that deftly addresses the perils of being undocumented and surviving sexual assault. Kiran enters Canada from India on a student visa, already...

The One Thing You’d Save by Linda Sue Park [in School Library Journal]

19 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

*STARRED REVIEW “Imagine that your home is on fire. You’re allowed to save one thing. / Your family and pets are safe … / Your Most Important Thing. Any size.” With that, Ms. Chang challenges her class to name their Most Important Things. “For once we...

Starfish by Lisa Fipps [in School Library Journal]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

Eleven-year-old Ellie has been bullied most of her life for being fat. The mean girls are bad enough, but her weight-obsessed mother might unintentionally be her worst enemy – what mother pushes bariatric surgery on her tween? Ellie’s best friend is moving away, which means that...

Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca [in School Library Journal]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, South Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

“I have two lives. / One that is Indian, / one that is not,” 13-year-old Reha introduces herself. During the week, she “swim[s] in a river of white skin” at school; “on weekends / [she] “float[s] in a sea of brown skin and black hair...

Angel & Hannah by Ishle Yi Park [in Shelf Awareness]

14 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Poetry, Puerto Rican, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Poet/singer Ishle Yi Park crafts an elegiac debut novel-in-verse featuring star-crossed teens, a "rebel/ Romeo & Juliet." From the opening line of Angel & Hannah, Park immediately commands complicity in sharing something secret involving diverse backgrounds: "Psst," she warns, "Ven acá. Illuwah" – "come here," in Spanish,...

We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire by Joy McCullough [in Booklist]

19 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Invoking the shocking Chanel Miller case, Joy McCullough introduces a mixed Guatemalan/presumed-to-be-white family in which older daughter Elinor is brutally raped; although found guilty, the rapist is released for “time served.” Despite best intentions, younger daughter Marianne’s social justice-driven public outrage only causes further damage...

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne [in Booklist]

15 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Mahogany L. Browne takes aural control of her novel-in-verse – a first novel for the prolific poet and writer (Black Girl Magic, 2018) – enhancing her story with soft, determined rhythms. “ME & LAY LI AIN’T TALKING,” Browne opens, “cause she think she cute / cause...

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo [in Booklist]

18 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Producers/directors, take note: this is how to effectively record an audiobook with more than a single narrator. Here, Melania-Luisa Marte reads Camino’s chapters, while author Elizabeth Acevedo picks up Yahaira’s. For chapters featuring both girls, Marte and Acevedo take turns in dialogue. When their...

Dreams from Many Rivers: A Hispanic History of the United States Told in Poems by Margarita Engle [in Booklist]

07 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

These United States are not quite a quarter-millennium old, but “Hispanic history in regions that are now called the United States spans more than five centuries,” Margarita Engle reminds in her essential opening historical note. With the island’s 15th-century colonization, “the history of the modern...

Diverse Novels in Verse for National Poetry Month [in School Library Journal]

25 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in African, Biography, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Organized by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month, in April, has been celebrated annually since 1996. While reading, writing, even performing poetry should be a year-round activity, National Poetry Month is a welcome catalyst to get verse newbies and doubters interested and involved. In...

We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices: Words and Images of Hope edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Inspired by their 7-year-old great-niece's distress over the 2016 elections, Just Us Books’ co-founders Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson created We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices as a contemporary antidote for fear. Recalling their dangerous experiences growing up in the 1950s and...

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo [in School Library Journal]

02 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW That Elizabeth Acevedo narrates her debut novel-in-verse is a sublime gift. She’s undoubtedly the ideal aural arbiter of her spectacular coming-of-age tale about a Harlem teen whose generational, cultural, religious, and emotional conflicts coalesce to teach her “to believe in the power of [her]...

Between the Lines by Nikki Grimes [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW "We live in the same city, go to the same school, but each of us has a different story," a student observes. "What we have in common is trying to figure out how to tell it." Welcome back to Mr. Ward's English class, introduced...

Go Home! edited by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, foreword by Viet Thanh Nguyen [in Booklist]

13 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Poetry, Repost

The phrase, go home, encompasses polarizing intentions. It’s a reference to one’s safest place but can also be a hurled threat of exclusion. That polarity illuminates these 31 stories, essays, and poems by writers of diasporic Asian origin, compiled by self-described “Japanese-Chinese-Scottish-English-American” novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan...

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition) by Maya Angelou, illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat, edited by Sara Jane Boyers [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Monsters under the bed, specters hiding in closets, demons just outside the door seem to afflict – and limit – every child at some point in their young lives. But what if those "Shadows on the wall / Noises down the hall" could be confronted...

Inheriting the War: Poetry & Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees edited by Laren McClung [in Booklist]

14 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

"The language of war turns the other into an object – the language of literature humanizes,” writes Laren McClung in her introduction to a collection featuring 61 contributors (and five translators) – 62 counting Yusef Komunyakaa’s resonating preface – each intimately affected by the Vietnam...

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