I'll be honest: I went into this book thinking something along the lines of, "this is going to be pretentious and weird and I am not going to like it." And I'll continue to be honest: I didn't love it. But I certainly didn't dislike it either. Reading a book like this to yourself is obviously not going to have the same feel that actually reading it aloud with another person - as it's supposed to be read - would give it. But even reading it in my head, alone (I felt it necessary to specify that I am alone in my head), I could get a sense of how it would feel when read aloud. Some of the poems would probably sound very cool.
But even as it was, I liked a lot of this slim paperback. The "book lice" one in particular.
I wonder if I have kids if we will read this. I hope I raise them reading poetry, so that they would be comfortable enough to try it aloud. Even though poetry is supposed to be read aloud, it takes guts to actually do so around other people. You feel you're not doing it right, or messing with the sense. I tend to go too fast. I'd like to have some poetry read out to me really well. I know I'm missing a part of poetry by not reading it aloud to myself, but blah blah.
I have to say, the whole reading together thing in this book is probably trickier than it seems. I can imagine my family trying and getting tangled up and laughing and having to stop all the time. It would still be fun - but I don't think that was how it was intended to be performed.
CONCLUSION: Expected it to be awful and was pleasantly surprised. Don't know why, though - it did win a Newberry Medal.
No comments:
Post a Comment