Dear reader, this post should be subtitled "How NOT To Finish Up A Reading Challenge." In a previous post I mentioned that I was in a mad dash to finish the Color-Coded Reading Challenge, so I had to hit the library for 3 books to finish the last 3 categories. The library branch closest to my house is smallish, so after a thorough perusal of the online catalog and the shelves and even the books for sale, it came down to a choice between this book, which is a small book of and about poetry that is aimed at kids, or Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. As much as I would have loved to tackle that novel, the sheer size of it meant that there was no way I could read that, plus 2 other books, in less than 48 hours (I have plans for New Year's Eve, so I can't spend that evening reading, etc. etc.). Thus it was that I came home with this book in hand.
This wasn't a bad book, just much shorter and scantier that I would have liked in terms of a book challenge-worthy book, if you know what I mean. On the plus side, it had a lot of interesting poetry terminology that I wasn't even aware of, and many examples of different kinds of poems. I liked how the author encouraged the reader to try writing their own poetry; I'm sure if I had read this book as a kid I would have loved doing so. On the down side, one of the poems uses the word "midget," and a couple others have a religious aspect, and I found both of these things jarring in a book published in 2004 and not, say, 1964 or even 1984. So that struck me as odd.
The moral of this story, dear reader, is: plan your time better throughout the year, so that you aren't scrambling on December 30 and you can use a big, heavy classic for your reading challenge if that's what you'd rather do! :)
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