A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The full title of this book is Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford with illustrations by Ekua Holmes.  I'm not sure how I came across this book.  It might have been reviewed recently in BookPage , or I may have come across it on Amazon while looking at other books.  I can't remember.  It's juvenile non-fiction, and I have another book from the easy reader section that I will probably be reviewing soon too.  I'm branching out a little bit in what I'm reviewing partially because I have classes starting again soon, and I'm not sure how much time I will have to read adult fiction or non-fiction.  And also because we got a few new easy reader children's books here at the library that I really (really) loved and wanted to tell people about them.   Voice of Freedom is one of those new books that I really liked.  It's told in verse and is accompanied by some stunning illustrations. The...

Harold Bloom is a prolific, highly decorated literary scholar who has taught at both Harvard and Yale.  The library has one of his books about Shakespeare.  Now we have this book, too: Till I End My Song .  It's a volume of last poems (or poems that Bloom has deemed last poems for whatever reason) by illustrious poets spanning several centuries. It is an intriguing and fascinating premise that is diminished and slightly soured by the pretentious tone of the editor's introductions for each poem.  A glaring oversight is the severe under representation of female poets.  One is nearly 150 pages into the volume and has read the last poems of thirty-four male poets before Bloom presents (finally) the last poem of Emily Bronte, the first female poet he spotlights. This book is available at the library, and lovers of poetry will enjoy this volume. --Reviewed by Ms. Angie

For those of you who enjoy poetry I'm sharing this link to the poem " Funeral Blues " by W. H. Auden.  The last stanza of the poem was used as an epigraph for the previously reviewed (see below) Pack Up The Moon by Anna McPartlin.  The novel's title comes from a line in the last stanza of "Funeral Blues."  I rather enjoyed the poem after I looked it up in its entirety and thought others would too. Wystan Hughes Auden (1907-1973) was born in York, England, but later achieved U.S. citizenship.  In addition to poetry, he also wrote many prose essays and reviews on a variety of themes that he also addressed in verse.  He was also involved in performance art and documentaries.  After teaching stints at the University of Michigan and Swarthmore College, Auden worked in Europe for the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey at the close of the second World War.  Upon completing this work he returned to the U.S. where he continued his teaching career at several Ameri...

This is a collection of poems by various contemporary poets (some well known, some not so much) based on the fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm in the early 1800's in Germany. The fairy tales the poems are based upon range from well known tales, such as those of Snow White and Cinderella to lesser known tales, such as "The White Snake" or "The Girl Without Hands." Some poems offer a meditation on the tale itself or a look at the tale from an entirely new and unexpected perspective. This is probably one of my favorite poetry collections and holds a special place in my heart because not only do I love poetry, but I also love fairy tales. In fact, in college I did two independent studies that focused on the fairy tale genre and a thesis case study of the tale of Snow White. I collected 30-50 versions of the tale, including Greek and Armenian versions. There is even supposed to be an Appalachian version of Snow White, though I've been unable to find a...