Our last encounter with Nikki Grimes was in Southwest Sunrise. As someone who typically doesn’t like poems, I referred to it as stealth poetry. That book is an illustrated book but has text that’s more poetic in nature. With Legacy, Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance, the literary cat has officially left the bag, because this is 100% poetry, and that’s OK. That’s what Stuart Smalley would say. Legacy is a poetry book that’s bite-sized in nature, allowing even those poetry adverse people to enjoy it. It accomplishes this by holding your hand as you read some classic poems from the Harlem Renaissance, as well as, some new poems from Grimes that were created using the Golden Shovel technique.
It’s Accessible poetry, reallyTag: Nikki Grimes
Southwest Sunrise gorgeously and softly teaches while entertaining
Southwest Sunrise is a sneaky illustrated book. At first impression, young readers (or those poetry adverse people like me…) might look at the text by Nikki Grimes and dismiss it as a poetry book with pictures. However, once it’s read to them (or when they read it….like me), they’ll realize that it’s a fabulous story about a young boy who is moving to New Mexico from New York. Is it a stealth poetry attack that you won’t mind because of the art by Wendell Minor? Or is it an illustrated story about a young kid adapting to an entirely new way of living-with poetic text to add some literary clues to add more insight?
This is a travelogue for ages 4 and up