Customer Reviews

I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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I originally bought this book to share with my sixth grade class of 11 and 12-year-olds. After the class had a chance to read the short poems, one of my students became attached to the book and re-read it several times, from front to back. This was my reluctant reader. He saw himself in many of the poems and at the end of the week I gave him the book to keep.

I am an eighth grade English teacher, and have had copies of "I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult" in my classrooms for the last seven years. Students reach for it again and again, to laugh, to find sympathy, and to share with their friends. Sara is our class poet every year. She crosses gender lines so that boys and girls find a voice that speaks to them, and she gives us a place to find common ground in our discussions. I can't recommend this book-and her others-highly enough.

The poetry in the collection is real life of any American teenager. The poems depict the thoughts of teenagers and their outlook on everything from boring school to overreacting parents who spaz out when kids don't see things the way their parents do. I honestly thought my 16 year old daughter was talking to me!

This book is great for grades 5-7....would be a little young for grades 8 and up. I found a lot of useful material for my poetry unit as the poems contained within are rich with figurative language. Recommended!

Sara Holbrook's I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult is one of those rare books that draws in the younger reader. The poems touch the heart of many a school kid. They talk about the types of circumstances that occur in young people's lives. For example, "The Storm That Was" is a perfect example of needing a person to vent your frustrations to. "I rolled in like a storm" and vented. But since you listened, "the storm... it blew away." Of course the "I hate" lines throughout the poem really connect with school kids. "Wrong" touches on the concept that kids hate being wrong during an argument with their parents. "What's worse than being wrong is... / maybe / you were right." Again, this collection of poems, from the ones mentioned above to "A Step," a poem about the possible first kiss (or more), to "Private Property," a poem about the sanctity of the body, to the touching last four lines of one of my personal favorites, "Scream Bloody Murder," there is a lesson to be learned that a child/teenager can connect with and understand.

The book is also a wonder for all ages. When parents lose control or just don't quite understand what their child is going through, maybe don't remember what it was like to be school students with peer pressure and problems, that's where this book also shines. If the parents read it, it will bring back memories of the way it was when "they were young," and not the fabricated idea of perfection that they may have in their minds, but the true memories of a disturbing time in their history. Sara Holbrook's poetry can do just that, and then maybe parents will understand their children just a little bit more.

In conclusion, this book not only helps children understand the problems they are going through, but it also helps parents remember those same problems. They can help their children survive the most awkward years of life.