This book was different from anything I have ever read or even seen. The introduction at the front of the book introduced the format of the book. The book is written as a "renga" which is an ancient Japanese version form in which poets take turns adding verses. The renga is written by two or more poets. The first poet writes three lines and the other poet follows with two lines. So it's kind of like a game or a puzzle by connecting the verses to make some sort of sense. It was really interesting to read but yet kind of challenging too. It really didn't flow together very well. On each page was three lines of text and it was followed by two italicized lines written by the other poet. It was kind of hard for me to understand and I had to read it a few times to get the just. But the description the poets used was amazing. It was written beautifully. I think this would be great to do with a class when teaching poetry, to partner up and construct a poem together. It really incorporates two different points of view into one to construct one big piece at the end. However, I don't know if I would read this to little kids. I think it is for probably fifth grade and up because of the complex set up and word usage of the story, but I think anyone is capable of the poetry pattern. The illustrations are also very detailed and beautiful and really reflect was is going on in the poem so that is another way to understand the story, to take the picture clues that are given to the reader.
No comments:
Post a Comment