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Cynthia Rylant's Poetry
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From: WMMayes at aol.com <WMMayes>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:50:42 EDT
Oh, SODA JERK! One of my all-time favorite books, it was a tough sell in its original hardcover incarnation. Looking too much like a picture book to interest the teen boys, it sat on a lot of shelves and didn't move. But now, in its slim paperback edition, sans the Catalanotto watercolors (which, in a rare for me 'diss' of a Dick Jackson or Peter Catalanottto title, did nothing to enhance the story) it seems to be finding an audience. This is partly due to the fact that it looks easy to read due to the length, but there is nothing
'easy' about this book, and the astonished teen who thinks he has chosen a quick, insubstantial book to read because he has to gets a terrific surprise.
As I say in the starred review in my book, "How Rylant knows what she knows about adolescent males is beyond me, but she is dead-on accurate in her portrait of teen yearnings." I often got goosebumps during my first reading of it, so disassociating and delicious was it to read my private, unexpressed thoughts on the page of her book. I think lots of males respond to it in a similar fashion, and I have read it to every group of eighth graders and higher that I have had the chance to. They love it and frequently cheer at the conclusion.
It is a tremendous performance piece, and I know of several instances where it has been used as oral interp for High school speech and debate, one where it helped a young man win a regional prize.
As always with Rylant, it is her word choices that astound me. It goes beyond mere writing and becomes something akin to channeling that she can so adroitly choose the combinations of words, usually fewer than most writers would use, that gives the reader the impression that this is a real seventeen year old boy talking here. Of course, there is also the possibility that she had a teenager tied up in her basement and forced him to reveal his deepest secrets, but I have since discounted that theory.
Walter the Giant Storyteller Walter M. Mayes co-author of VALERIE AND WALTER'S BEST BOOKS FOR CHILDREN: A LIVELY, OPINIONATED GUIDE, published by Avon Books WMMayes at aol.com
Received on Mon 20 Jul 1998 06:50:42 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:50:42 EDT
Oh, SODA JERK! One of my all-time favorite books, it was a tough sell in its original hardcover incarnation. Looking too much like a picture book to interest the teen boys, it sat on a lot of shelves and didn't move. But now, in its slim paperback edition, sans the Catalanotto watercolors (which, in a rare for me 'diss' of a Dick Jackson or Peter Catalanottto title, did nothing to enhance the story) it seems to be finding an audience. This is partly due to the fact that it looks easy to read due to the length, but there is nothing
'easy' about this book, and the astonished teen who thinks he has chosen a quick, insubstantial book to read because he has to gets a terrific surprise.
As I say in the starred review in my book, "How Rylant knows what she knows about adolescent males is beyond me, but she is dead-on accurate in her portrait of teen yearnings." I often got goosebumps during my first reading of it, so disassociating and delicious was it to read my private, unexpressed thoughts on the page of her book. I think lots of males respond to it in a similar fashion, and I have read it to every group of eighth graders and higher that I have had the chance to. They love it and frequently cheer at the conclusion.
It is a tremendous performance piece, and I know of several instances where it has been used as oral interp for High school speech and debate, one where it helped a young man win a regional prize.
As always with Rylant, it is her word choices that astound me. It goes beyond mere writing and becomes something akin to channeling that she can so adroitly choose the combinations of words, usually fewer than most writers would use, that gives the reader the impression that this is a real seventeen year old boy talking here. Of course, there is also the possibility that she had a teenager tied up in her basement and forced him to reveal his deepest secrets, but I have since discounted that theory.
Walter the Giant Storyteller Walter M. Mayes co-author of VALERIE AND WALTER'S BEST BOOKS FOR CHILDREN: A LIVELY, OPINIONATED GUIDE, published by Avon Books WMMayes at aol.com
Received on Mon 20 Jul 1998 06:50:42 PM CDT
