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Viorst, Judith, and Lee White. What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?: Poems for When a Person Needs a Poem. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016. ISBN 9781481423557
Review and Critical Analysis:
Judith Viorst has created a collection of poems that explores the wide range of feelings children experience on any given day. Her book of poetry, What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?: Poems for When a Person Needs a Poem truly provides a poem for any time a person needs a poem. It holds poems for every feeling (whether it be glad, mad, sad, or bad), for school, family, friends, home, away, and much more. Children will be thrilled to read this book and discover poems that capture their roller coaster feelings in a fun and light-hearted way.
This collection of poetry begins with the “Contents” of the book. The contents is divided into titled sections beginning with general feelings and moving on to specific subjects like school, family, friends, this and that, and more. The section “How Are You Feeling Today?” contains poems for every feeling, whether it’s madness, sadness, gladness, loneliness, jealousy, fear, curiosity, or silliness. “School Stuff” is a section of poems about school - a place where children spend a large part of their lives. It’s not surprising that these poems deal with much more than Math, Science, Social Studies, and English. They show school for what it is - a place for learning how to get along in the world. The poem “What I’ve Learned at School” says, “John F. Kennedy was our thirty-fifth president. / Earth is a planet revolving around the sun. / Not everyone’s mom puts an I-love-you notes in their lunch box next to their lunch. / And not everyone remembers to flush when they’re done.” The poem continues with a clever mix of historical facts learned in school and real life facts learned there as well.
Although each poem in this collection is unique in its rhythm and sound, all of the poems rhyme. You would think that using rhyme in every poem in a collection might get a bit redundant and boring, but Viorst uses rhyme in such creative and innovative ways, that they are not redundant in the least. I couldn’t wait to turn each page to see what wry wit was waiting for me there. Her use of rhyme adds humor and appeal to the poems. It makes them more appealing to children (and adults!), and brings light-heartedness even to difficult subjects like divorce. She even includes a poem entitled “My Least Favorite Things” that can be sung to the tune of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things.” How clever to use this light-hearted tune to list a child’s least favorite things.
Lee White’s illustrations add to the humor of Viorst’s poems. His comical interpretation of the poems gives the reader another dose of light-heartedness. His illustration for “The Best and the Worst” section of poems shows a little girl riding high and carelessly on a unicorn while snakes hiss at the unicorn’s heals. For the poem “Whoops” that says, “I tell you I am tall enough! / Don’t need your help to get that stuff!” he shows a boy climbing a ladder to reach a treasure chest sitting on top of a dragon. White’s use of the color blue in his illustrations brings out the emotion of each poem. Blue is a calming and sad color, and it fits perfectly with these poems to show what you are glad about or what you are mad about.
Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:
What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?
By Judith Viorst
If you had just one color to paint the whole world,
Would it be orange or gray?
If you had just one message to give to the world,
Would it be grrr or hooray?
If you had just one place you could live in this world,
Would you choose here or away?
What are you glad about?
What are you mad about?
How are you feeling today?
Did you wake up this morning all smiley inside?
Does life taste like ice cream and cake?
Or does it seem more like your goldfish just died
And your insides are one great big ache?
Do you wish you could go in a closet and hide?
Or would you rather go play?
What are you glad about?
Mad about? Sad about?
How are you feeling today?
When they ask you to do something, will you say yes?
Or will your answer be no?
Do you think that you get what you want - or much less?
Are you shrinking or starting to grow?
Is that person you see in the mirror a mess?
Or is that person okay?
What are you glad about?
Mad, sad, or bad about?
How are you feeling today?
“What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?” is an excellent poem to read regularly to students. So many students come to school with no one who ever asks them how they are feeling. This poem has a great deal of “care” in it, and a simple reading of it will let students know they are cared about, and that someone wants to know how they are feeling today.
I would introduce this poem by reading all the way through it one time first. Then, I would read it again, pausing after each question and allowing a student to answer. I would lead students in a discussion of the purpose of this poem, and of poetry in general - to express feelings and emotion. We would discuss how this poem does that and how it allows the reader to think about all the feelings they are having today.
I would then give students their own copy of the poem and have them answer the questions from the poem. They could do this in paragraph form, or with short, simple answers. Then, they would look through their answers to the questions and choose an emotion that stands out to them about how they are feeling today. Then, they would create their own poem, filling in the blank for the title “What I am (Mad, Sad, Glad, etc.) About Today.” At the end of the lesson I would ask for volunteers to share their poems with the class.
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