KBACH/Changing Hands Bookstore Book Notes selection for July

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Kbach/ Changing Hands Book Notes Selection for July 2015

 

For KBACH and Changing hand Bookstore, I’m Randy Kinkel and this is Book Notes, a book club for Arts lovers.

 

 

The American Poet e.e cummings once wrote:

 “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are”

 

 So begins the book, “enormous smallness—a story of e.e Cummings”  named after a passage in one of e.e. cummings’s 1952 Harvard lectures. 

I’m not sure about how it is for kids these days, but I’ll bet it’s similar to my experience growing up—Kids tend to single out other kids who might be a little bit different or outside of the norm—the awkward, the nerdy, the artistic-- for insults, abuse, or worse; it makes it tough for a kid to be who he or she really is, not succumb to pressure to be just like “the Cool kids”.  Ironically, though, the way to be successful and happy in this thing we call life, later on, as an adult---- is to BE who you really are; to follow your instincts and dreams and ideas, separate from the herd. 

That’s why it’s so important to have examples like e.e.cummings for kids to look up to, to know that different is OK, and can even be liberating, leading to lifelong satisfaction, if not always success, in your chosen field, especially for creative types.  

 

That’s why I’m doubly pleased to see this book, “enormous Smallness: a story of e.e. cummings by Matthew Burgess and Kris Di Giacomo and select it as the Kbach/Changing Hands Bookstore book notes selection of the month for July, 2015.

 

 

Author Matthew Burgess is a doctoral lecturer at Brooklyn College and a poet-in-residence in NYC elementary schools.  His debut collection of poems, Slippers for Elsewhere, was published last year. Enormous Smallness is his first children's book..

 

 

It might be Matthew who wrote the words that dance across the pages of this marvelous book, but it’s Kris di Giacomo that fully gives them life with her sparse, spare but colorful pen and ink drawings with just enough of a wash of color to breathe life into the people, animals, buildings and streets, and poetry that make up the remarkable life of Poet e.e. cummings. 

 

Illustrator Kris Di Giacomo is an American who has lived in Paris since childhood. She has illustrated over 25 picture books, which have been translated into many other languages.

 

There are so many great images in the book, using both pictures and words themselves to drive home a situation or personality trait that it’s impossible to talk about all of them here.  A favorite image of mine in the book involves cummings as a circusmaster, his words jumping through hoops, literally and figuratively. There are lots of visual puns that will make you chuckle that your kids might not always “get”, and that’s one of the joys of the book.  

  

Cummings wanted to be a poet from childhood and wrote poetry daily from ages 8 to 22, exploring all kinds of different forms. He went to Harvard and developed an interest in modern poetry which ignored conventional grammar and syntax, aiming for a dynamic use of language.  It might take a little creativity on your part to explain why Cummings would write his poems the way he did, and why HE was allowed to never use capital letters when your kids’ teacher tells them they have to!

This is a remarkable book that gives an example of one kid who did everything differently-- and came out OK.  In fact, he became one of our greatest poets.  The book is fun, informative, and It sends a valuable message with wit, creativity and beauty; it tells kids its OK to "color outside the lines" and to have an inner life not driven by others’ expectations.

Enormous smallness: a story of e.e. cummings  by Matthew Burgess is the KBACH/ Changing Hands bookstore Book Notes Selection for July.

 

To Find out more about the book and to order it at a Book Notes Discount, go to www.changinghands.com.  For KBACH and Changing Hands Bookstore, I’m Randy Kinkel and This is Book Notes, a book club for Lovers of the arts.