Sidman, Joyce. This
Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness. Ill. Pamela Zagarenski.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
ISBN: 978-0-618-61680-0
Poetic
Elements: Sidman uses
a unique mixture of poetic elements throughout this book. The imagery she creates in the first poem This is Just to Say capitalizes on what
a mess powdered sugar is to eat: “Too bad, the powdered sugar, spilled all over
my shirt, and gave me, away.”
Personification is used in the poem Lucky
Nose when the subject at hand is a statue that is being treated as a real
person: “I am very sorry for assaulting
your nose before every spelling test.” I Got
Carried Away also uses personification when describing the red balls used
in the game of dodgeball, “All those red rubber balls thumping like heartbeats
against the walls and ceiling.” A simile is tossed into the mix as the poem
continues, “blinking back and forth like stop lights.” The poem Fashion
Sense uses an idiom when it says, “The classroom was so dead.” In the poem Brownies – Oops! Sidman uses hyperbole when she writes, “I smelled
them from my room: a wafting wave of chocolate-ness.” Onomatopoeia can be heard as well as felt in Dodge Ball Kings when it says, “We mark
each other out – zing, bam, sting! The
clever play with words and humor that Sidman uses in creating her apologies and
forgiveness requests, concisely presents situations that almost any reader will
be able to relate to.
Appeal: The topic at hand for each poem’s apology or
poem response to the apology will keep kids glued to reading this book in its
entirety. The book seeks the same charm
that a kid gets when watching someone else get into trouble. The view point being written and told by
various Sixth Grade students will allow the poem’s language to be easily
understood by its intended audience of other kids. After reading each apology, students have
time to think about how they would respond before reading how the recipient
actually responded in the book. Imaginations
will soar as readers take time to sort through the facts and simulate their own
emotions of response before reading how the actual response is claimed.
Overall
Quality: The poems
are very consistent in quality and resemble words spoken by various kids that
Sidman has creatively imagined. The
first half of the book contains poems that explain admissions of guilt and the
second half of poems are conclusions or responses given by the offended. The balance between all of the imaginative
things written about by way of apology and how the recipient reacts is quite
comical in some instances. Each poem is
uniquely spaced and written. Various
fonts are used throughout the book providing a lot of variety. Some poems require a two-page spread, while
shorter poems are on single-page spreads.
Pamela Zagarenski, the illustrator, used mixed media on paper, canvas,
and wood with collage and computer graphics.
Each poem’s illustrations are very entertaining and playful to look at
and are visually appropriate for this book.
Reading anything by Joyce Sidman is always a pleasant delight.
The
Poets: Joyce
Sidman is the single poet that wrote this anthology of poems about apologies
and forgiveness. She is an accomplished
writer of poetry, fiction, journalism, and essays, but is currently well known
for writing children’s poetry. She is
the winner of the 2013 NCTE Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry, a
Newbery Honor winner, a two-time Caldecott honor winner, and has won the
Claudia Lewis Poetry Award. This Is Just
to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness has received multiple honors and
awards including: Claudia Lewis Poetry
Award, Cybils Poetry Award, Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book, School
Library Journal Best Book of the Year, IRA Teacher's Choice Book, New York
Public Library's "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing," and Book
Links Lasting Connection Book.
Layout: Readers will definitely recognize Sidman’s
style of writing that is quite witty when reading this book. Sidman, has written the entire collection of
poems for this book. The book contains a
table of contents, an introduction, and the poem This Is Just to Say by W.C. Williams before ever getting to
Sidman’s poems. The poems are arranged
in two parts. The first 18 poems are
related to apologies and the last 17 poems are responses of forgiveness in
relation to the apologies. Sidman’s
introduction is hypothetically written by a Sixth Grade boy and is meant to get
the reader ready for her book.
Spotlight
Poem: Remembering the golden rule to treat others
as you would want to be treated is the overarching theme in this book of
poetry. For many people, those young and
old, it is hard to offer an apology because we allow our pride to get in the
way. The same can happen in acting
cattily in response when someone tries to offer a sincere apology. For a school counselor, I think this would be
an incredible book to share with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
graders and discuss what seems to get us into “pickles” that cause us to need
to offer up an apology. Walking students
through the correct way of asking for forgiveness from someone and the correct
way to respond are all situations that students will benefit by seeing modeled
by a professional. Creating various scenarios
to roll-play and asking individual students how they would respond would allow
a chance to practice a social skill that is often overlooked.
Part of the poem Not
Really by Joyce Sidman
I’m
sorry I bumped your books that day
And
scattered them all over the floor
(but
not really).
I’m
sorry your locker mirror disappeared
And
mysteriously ended up in my desk
(but
not really).
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