Poems in the Attic

Best Children's Books of the Year, Bank Street College of Education
Notable Books in the Language Arts, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
Notable Poetry List, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
Choices, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Award-winning poet Nikki Grimes brings us a tender poetry collection about a young girl learning about her mother, the child of an Air Force serviceman.

During a visit to her grandma's house, a young girl discovers a box of poems in the attic, poems written by her mother when she was growing up. Her mother's family often moved around the United States and the world because her father was in the Air Force. Over the years, her mother used poetry to record her experiences in the many places the family lived.

Reading the poems and sharing those experiences through her mother's eyes, the young girl feels closer to her mother than ever before. To let her mother know this, she creates a gift: a book with her own poems and copies of her mother's. And when she returns her mother's poems to the box in the attic, she leaves her own poems too, for someone else to find, someday.

Using free verse for the young girl's poems and tanka for her mother's, master poet Nikki Grimes creates a tender intergenerational story that speaks to every child's need to hold onto special memories of home, no matter where that place might be.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Published: 07/01/2015
ISBN: 9781620140277
Pages: 48
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 11.00h x 9.10w x 0.50d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2015
School Library Journal 04/01/2015 pg. 178
Booklist 04/15/2015 pg. 50
Horn Book Magazine 05/01/2015 pg. 124
Publishers Weekly 05/11/2015
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2015 pg. 203 - Superior,Well Above Average
Kirkus Best Middle Grade Books 11/15/2015 pg. 75

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 176978 / Poems in the Attic
Reading Level: 3.9 / Interest Level: Lower Grade / Point Value: 0.5