Reading Level: 500L
Interest Level: Grades K - 2
“Sometime Mr. Ferlinghetti writes a poem about the things he remembers. He wrote one about that ay, that steamy hot day when he and Molly sat on the stoop sighing through a ho-hum summer. Here is Mr. Ferlinghetti’s poem, just the way he wrote it.”
Okay, so obviously I can have love for books that introduce children to important poets or songwriters (see my review of “God Bless the Child illustrated by Pickney” or “I, Too Am America”); however, to be good, the illustration, presentation and form have to match (as closely as possible) the quality of the work it uses. To use Pinkney’s Holiday adaptation as an example, “God Bless the Child” used beautifully rendered, thoughtful, symbolism-packed paintings to weave a tale alongside Holiday’s lyrics, and without the lyrics, the story would still stand well on its own. Not so much with “Mr. Ferlinghetti’s poem,” which features woodcut illustrations that lack both physical and emotional depth. The way the text is placed and designed doesn’t do this book any favors either; for example, the text sits alone in wide swathes of white, which looks unfinished; AND the font is comic sans. Really? I don’t think the font OR the wavy, cartoonish illustrations match the gentle, melancholy, nostalgic tone of the poem. There are a couple of exceptions – most notably where Frampton renders water or the sun, such as a full two-page illustration of children riding newspaper sailboats across a swirly sea and in front of the big, blissful yellow sun. Otherwise, though, the illustrations aren’t interesting enough to match to this narrative. The introductory text also feels slapped together and tacked on. Basically, this work is uneven and not really worthy of Ferlinghetti. A shame, too, because the concept of beat poetry in picture book format is pretty cool, man.
