*****= An all-time favorite
**** = Outstanding
*** =
Above average
**
= Enjoyable
*
= Good, with reservations
***Girl Coming In For a Landing
A Novel in Poems
by April Halprin Wayland
Illustrations by Elaine Clayton
Reviewed October 15, 2002.
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2002. 134 pages.
Winner of the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry.
Available at Sembach Library (JF WAY)
This “novel” is a series of poems expressing a teen’s thoughts and
feelings as she goes through her tenth grade year. There’s a tiny
thread of plot and recurring characters. Mostly, it’s a fun, light
look at what it’s like to be a teen.
The poems aren’t bad at all. The author didn’t make them worse
to make them sound like what a teen would write. There’s a nice
variety, and there are some that make me feel, yes, that’s how it is,
I feel the same way.
I liked the way she followed a sweet poem about her sister with
a poem about Monopoly that talked about “the dice / That my sneaky, scheming
sister gets to toss out twice. They rattle in her piggish fist,
then spill across the board / My mom and dad and I watch as she adds to
her hoard.”
I think that this book will rightfully be popular with teen girls.
It’s a fun variation from the typical novel.
Book Reviews by Sondra
Eklund