Pearl is a little girl who does not quite fit the world. Her teacher, Ms. Bruff, doesn't understand her, or appreciate her poems that don't rhyme. She is "a group of one," not part of the theater group, or the sports group or the library crowd. One of the most popular girls in the class accuses Pearl of stealing her "boyfriend."Pearl lives with her mother and her grandmother, who is in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease. Her mom, totally overwhelmed with the demands of caring for a dying aunt, does not have a lot left to give to Pearl. And so once again, Pearl is alone.
Then Pearl's grandmother dies and Pearl and her mother are left planning a funeral. Pearl makes sense of the experience in the way she knows best- by writing a poem, a non-rhyming poem, that she reads at her grandmother's funeral.
PEARL VERSES THE WORLD is a perfect to add to your collection of novels in verse. It would be great to hand to one of those "group of one" kids in your class. Or to give to other kids to help them develop compassion for those "group of one" kids. It's a novel about surviving loneliness. It's a novel about saying goodbye and grieving. Most of all, it's a novel about the power of poetry in a child's life.
POETRY FRIDAY is at MADIGAN READS.
4 comments:
Pearl Verses the World sounds wonderful. Thank you for letting us know about it!
Carol, thanks for the review. I'm going to check out the book. It's amazing how often, when I'm visiting a school, one of the children is dealing with a recent death.
Oh, I see we have to wait! Arc envy.
I was hooked by that face on the cover. And I was hoping, before I read your review, that VERSES would mean the poetic kind, not the fighting kind.
Gotta watch for this one. I want to meet Pearl in person.
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