Is This Forever, or What?: Poems & Paintings from Texas [Hardcover]

Naomi Shihab Nye (Author), Various (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Texas.

The state line stretches for 2,842 miles. There are coasts and mountains and rivers and lakes and cities and towns and disappearing towns and fields of wildflowers and hills and wide-open places.

The state of mind has no borders. And the 140 Texans in this book are about to show you why.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 9-up. The Texans in this anthology of art and poetry call their state "a deep breath"; a "landscape / lit like an overexposed photo"; a place where "cities and towns have wide margins around them." But don't expect swaggering, western stereotypes: "At least half the people in this book probably own no boots or cowboy hats," warns Nye in her funny, eloquent introduction. Organized somewhat arbitrarily, the poems include moving family tributes, furious self-revelations, and quiet, atmospheric vignettes that find grace and beauty in sun-baked neighborhoods, basic work, and everyday faces, such as the body-shop mechanic who "corrects the mistakes made by others . . . working the violence from warped / machines." Many poets, including Pat Mora, reference their Mexican heritage, and there are a few bilingual selections. The accompanying artworks are arresting without overpowering the words, and they echo the poems' wide range of styles with minimal abstractions, wildly colored Mexican imagery, and even a glistening, photo-realistic painting of donuts. Although Nye writes that she created this anthology to showcase "the beautiful diversity, the multiplicity of our state," this rich collection shows the universal currents and "the wide margins" that we all share. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye has received a Lannan Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and four Pushcart Prizes. Her collection 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her collection Honeybee was awarded the Arab-American Book Award. She is currently serving on the Board of Chancellors for the Academy of American Poets. Naomi Shihab Nye has edited several honored and popular poetry anthologies, including Time You Let Me In, What Have You Lost?, Salting the Ocean, and This Same Sky, and she is the author of the novels Habibi and Going, Going. She lives with her family in San Antonio, Texas.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books; 1 edition (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060511788
• ISBN-13: 978-0060511784
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,944,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)