Stars with Flaming Tails: Poems

by Valerie Bloom, Ken Wilson-Max (Illustrator)

Overview

WINNER OF THE CLIPPA CHILDREN'S POETRY PRIZE 2022

I traveled once around the world
On stars with flaming tails,
And touched the colors of my dreams
Along some silver trails.

Look out for best friends, pancakes, and Grandad singing; discover a river dolphin, a poison dart frog and the most dangerous animal in the world; imagine a talking nose, meet the Zimbats of Zingley Dell and find the color of your dreams. This collection includes poems to make you laugh, get you thinking and fill you with wonder - from an internationally renowned poet and illustrator, working together here for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781913074678
Publisher:	Otter-Barry Books
Publication date:	11/01/2021
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Born in Jamaica, Valerie Bloom is one of the most highly regarded poets writing today and is a popular performer in schools. She was awarded an MBE in the UK's 2008 New Year Honors List. She lives in Kent, England. Ken Wilson-Max was born in Zimbabwe and is an internationally renowned children's book illustrator, author and designer and co-director of publishing house Alanna Max. He wrote and illustrated Astro Girl, published in 2019 by Candlewick/Otter-Barry Books. He lives in London, UK.

Editorial Reviews

"Full of wonder, friendship, nonsense and delight." —Imogen Russell Williams

From the Publisher

12/17/2021

Gr 2–4—This collection of poetry covers a variety of topics, such as family, friends, and animals. The poems are a variety of lengths, but they always rhyme. While the rhyming is sometimes seamless, it can also be jarring, leaving readers to wonder how much searching for a rhyming word went into the poetic process. It is difficult to know the audience for this title, as a common thread or voice is often not present. This collection has an odd bent, with several references to soldiers and war. Many of the entries read like Bloom is trying to write for young readers, but the end product sounds stilted. For example, some verses have unusual turns of phrase, such as "How will I make friends when I hate conversing?" While poems about making friends are common, young readers may not know what "conversing" means. Simple but fun black-and-white drawings in pencil and digital ink are more successful for the intended audience. The drawings are present on every page and often convey a childlike approach. VERDICT The mixed quality of the poems and the difficulty in determining the audience makes this a questionable purchase.—Susan Lissim, Dwight Sch., New York City

School Library Journal

2021-07-27
A compact gathering of new verse on diverse topics, from a British poet born in Jamaica.

Within thematic groupings, Bloom writes of children newly born or bored (“Family and Friends”), of erupting volcanoes (“Our World”), of extinct animals (“Animals”), and of dreams (“Unbelievable?”). In the family section, a child muses on her parents, who are apparently at odds: “They say that they’ll always / Love me forever. / I only wish / They could love me together.” Another section, titled “Fun With Forms,” offers samples of an elfje and of skeltonic verse among more familiar constructions—but, alas, there is no explication of these. Though her casual approach to rhyming and metrics does result in some stumbles (“Once I held inside my palms / the curviness of a bow, / and listened in the cornfield / to the sadness of a scarecrow”), the selections offer a range of moods and some choice wordplay to boot, like this from “Praying Mantis”: “Before a meal, what it will say / Is not ‘Bless this food’ but ‘Let us prey’.” The child on the cover and many of the human figures in the illustrations that accompany nearly every poem are people of color. Outside of anthologies, very little of the veteran poet’s work has made it to the States, so count this for most U.S. readers an unjustly tardy introduction.

Tender to tongue-in-cheek, a broad showcase for a versatile writer. (Poetry. 8-11)

Kirkus Reviews