Customer Reviews

Jabberwocky

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Christopher Myers has created a picture book for all ages. This sporty interpretation of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky is brilliantly illustrated. A 2007 must have for every library..home and school!

I am not sure what originall about this book caught my eye. I was in the school library with my students when I stumbled across this. I wanted to save it for February and Black History Month, but it just looked so darn cool that I had to read it immediately. After a discussion of "nonsense" words with my class, I opened this incredible reimagining of the famous poem and we were instantly swept away in Myers' usual dizzying color and street ball images that worked very a well with a poem I had always thought was about a medieval monster. But hey, why can't the poem be about a tall-tale basketball player and the scamp that dares to challenge him? Awesome read all the way around.

"Jabberwocky" is a poem inside of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," rather than a stand-alone piece of literature. Yet because of its intricate use of language, both real and invented, it fairly demands to be recited, quoted, and referenced (in everything from advanced particle physics to James Joyce), despite being relegated to the outback of "children's literature."

But what does it mean? Christopher Myers has reinvented the poem, without changing one word, through a series of dramatic drawings. Yes, it is only 32 pages, but if you ever wanted to know what "reinvention" meant, you should read this book.

What a fantastic book with so many educational uses. If you love the poem, you will never look at it the same again. It may be hard to imagine Jabberwocky as a one-on-one basketball game, but it totally works. Lewis Carroll's nonsense words combined with Chris Myers vivid pictures becomes the "trash talking". This book is great to teach visualization, inference, and clarifying strategies.

Jabberwocky is, of course, one of the better-known narrative poems of the English language.

The artwork in this book is wonderful, placing the poem on a basketball court dominated by a monstrous, many-fingered giant. I don't know why I like it, but I really do.

This poem has been a family favorite for several generations - and this version of it is wonderful! The drawings fit - who would have thought the poem could be related to basketball?!!