This is an interesting book. It begins with a poem about a wedding. Two families join, and through poetry, this book tells the feelings of a young boy when he acquires a "new brother." He shares feelings of jealousy and anger in the beginning of the book. The boy feels that his new brother is taking his place. Eventually, he warms up to his new family. The poetry really captures the emotions and feelings of the boy. This is a really relatable, sweet story about mixed family. It represents the fear and feelings of abandonment that can be felt by children who have lost a parent. I was really touched by the words, it seemed as if they came from .
The poems are written with "natural rhymes" and the twenty individual poems seem to flow with one another, and build upon the previous poem. There are poems of many different lengths - some are only three lines (haiku), others have several stanzas and span two pages of the book. The author uses the senses to create strong feelings in a reader.
The large scale illustrations are well done, and one can see that the illustrator and the author worked in close collaboration in their creation of the illustrations. Each illustration represents the poem on its corresponding page/s. They create really neat visual representations of the author's words. For instance, in the poem titled "Mouse" the boy feels so small in his home with two new family members. The illustrator shows the tiny boy at the ankles of the four new feet.
This is a book of poems that could be VERY useful in a classroom setting!
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