"Ivy in Bloom": a minha review

"Ivy in Bloom" foi-me cedido pela Netgalley e pelo editor  para que eu fizesse uma apreciação honesta deste livro. Não há de momento edição em português. Publiquei a minha opinião na Amazon e no Goodreads com 4/5 estrelas e a seguinte "review":

“I'm Ivy Van Allsberg.
I'm waiting for spring.
I stare out the window
Looking for birds
Or flowers
Or even warm showers.
But I don't see any
such thing”.

Ivy in Bloom is a children's picture book written by Vanita Oelschlager and illustrated by Kristin Blackwood.  The publisher (Vanita Books) establishes the young readers advised age as 4-8. Yet, I don’t believe a four or five-year-old would enjoy everything this book offers. I imagine children 7 to 9 years old appreciating it more. And adults too, for this book obvious beauty and originality.

This book greatest merit is that it introduces poetry to children. And not any poetry: we are talking about Whitman, Dickinson, Longfellow, Browning, Wordsworth, Frost and others. It can look daunting to think of a small child reading long and even difficult passages of these poets but the author is smarter than that: Vanita Oelschlager combines her own poetry with single, short lines of classic poetry, creating an accessible, attractive, light text, in harmony with the beautiful, full page illustrations.

In the back of the book, the poet’s texts are presented in full, showing readers how the opening section, written by Vanita, transitions to them. The borrowed excerpts are highlighted in green.  

The unifying theme is the season’s transition. Ivy (just like me) is tired of long, sad Winters and wishes for Spring. Kristin Blackwood’s illustrations reflect well the progressive changing tone of the story. Depressing shades of gray (The world’s a smudge/Of brown and gray. The buds won’t budge. The sun stays away.) give way to vibrant joyful colors as spring blossoms.
See here what I mean:

This clever book is a fun way to introduce classic poetry to children and show them that they can express feelings through words.

I received this book as an eARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.