Poems in the Attic Review by Dana G. Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grimes, Nikki. Poems in the Attic. Lee and Low Books: New York, 2015. ISBN 9781620140277

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
A seven-year-old girl stays with her grandmother while her mother is away for three days. She finds a box in grandma's attic that contains several short poems her mother wrote as a girl. Her mother's family moved a lot because her grandfather was in the military, and the poems reflected her mother's thoughts about every city they lived in during her youth. 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Nikki Grimes does an extraordinary job using poetry to share life experiences from mother to daughter in Poems in the Attic. On the left-hand page, the daughter writes free verse poems in response to her mother's Tanka poems (featured on the right-hand side page) written about experiences she had living around the world as a girl.

Elizabeth Zunon provided the illustrations for this book, and they do a great job of linking the time jump between the present and the past and giving depth to the mother's history. What I found interesting was that illustrations of the daughter's experiences and thoughts are often inside while her mother's exploration of each place she's lived are primarily outside in nature. This is likely because the girl admits that she has always lived in the city, but it also represents a modern generational difference.

Grimes uses very carefully chosen words to paint pictures of each "home." "As we watched/ this dancing rainbow/ shimmy 'cross Alaska's sky" is a wonderful portrayal of the northern lights. But even more importantly than the vivid and colorful memories are the emotional depths that both mother and daughter feel about the experiences in the poems. Grimes sets the mood and tells a story with just a few perfect words, "I don't know how she did it,/ moving all the time./ I get dizzy thinking about/ all those goodbyes," depicts the daughter's empathy for her mother's constant change and the emotional upheaval she must have felt. The last poem she reads propels the daughter to action. In response, the daughter decides to record her own thoughts and create her own book of poetry interweaving her thoughts with her mother's work, and she presents the homemade book to her mother as a gift.

In the author's note Grimes said she moved a lot as child, although her parents weren't in the military. So when writing this book, she was able to channel that emotion into the poetry along side the experiences of those who grew up moving from one U.S. Air Force base to another.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee 2016
Arnold Adoff Poetry Award Honor
Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year 2016
CCBC Choices 2016
LA Times Summer Reading List
NCTE Notable Poetry List 2016
New York City Department of Education National Poetry Month Recommendation

From Booklist
"A book about discoveries, this celebrates poetry and the quixotic life of a military family. A young girl response in free verse to the poems she uncovers in the attic, poems her mother wrote in tanka (a form of Japanese poetry) about the wonder of her experiences living throughout the world." 

From School Library Journal
"Sweet and accessible but never simplistic, this collection captures the experience of a military childhood with graceful sophistication. Grimes uses different styles of poem for each voice (free verse for the daughter and tanka poems for the mother), a choice that she discusses in an explanatory note on poetry forms that will serve budding poets and teachers alike. Rendered in acrylic, oil and collage, Zunon's warm, vibrant illustrations complement the text perfectly. Readers with an especially keen interest in the locations highlighted can look to a complete list of Air Force Bases appended. VERDICT A gem of a book." 

5. CONNECTIONS
Other books by Nikki Grimes:

• My Man Blue. ISBN 9780142301975
• One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance. ISBN 978161963548
• Welcome Precious. ISBN 9780439557023

Other Poetry Picture Books relating to historical topics: 

• Hughes, Langston. I, Too, Am America. ISBN 9781442420083
• Weather ford, Carole Boston. Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer. ISBN 9780763665319
• Wilson, Edwin Graves, PhD. Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou. ISBN 9781402720239

This selection of recommended poetry picture books for children all relate to American history, particularly the Civil Rights movement. Too often, Grimes notes on her website, children are exposed only to humorous poetry. Grimes has spent her life creating poetry that illicit deep emotional connections and can both stand alone and serve as a broader narrative, and she is not alone in this mission.

The books above present American heroes like Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Maya Angelou in presentations welcoming to children. Thus, making one of America's greatest struggles and the emotions of the Civil Rights movement accessible to our youngest citizens.