Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

Cork the muskrat and Fuzz the possum play many games, but Cork gets frustrated when Fuzz keeps winning. He suggests a swim race without realizing Fuzz can't swim. When Fuzz momentarily disappears, Cork fears the worst, and soon realizes that winning isn't so important as long as he has his buddy. Sharp, playful illustrations display the friends' emotions.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-The veteran anthologist has selected 54 poems and divided them chronologically into eight sections representing major American conflicts. Each section is prefaced with an abbreviated description of the war. The poems do not always reference a specific conflict, but were chosen to convey its "emotional impact." Thus, Sir Walter Scott's lines from "Lady of the Lake" address an exhausted Revolutionary soldier, and Langston Hughes's "Dreams" concludes the Iraq War section. Contemporary (and near-contemporary) poets, from J. Patrick Lewis to Jane Yolen to Denise Levertov, are well represented, as a majority of these poems were commissioned for this collection. Earlier authors-from Walt Whitman to Carl Sandburg-also make a strong showing. A few of the poems are infused with the exultant rhetoric of war but many are small narratives or vignettes in which families ache and grieve, soldiers long for home. The full-color expressionist watercolors, with their bold line and large elongated figures that curve and angle, dominate the cream pages. Their details often set the accompanying words in a specific time. Their dramatic compositions with their recurring and creatively arranged iconography of war further dramatize and expand the poets' words. Their flaw is in the scarcity of brown and Asian faces in roles other than runaway slaves or victims. Laura Robb's Music and Drum: Voices of War and Peace, Hope and Dreams (Philomel, 1997) and Eloise Greenfield's When the Horses Ride By: Children in the Times of War (Lee & Low, 2006) touch on Native American experiences-a genocide that Hopkins's collection does not include. Still, the selections and art here, with their varying accessibility, make this a good choice for a wide range of ages and studies.-Nancy Palmer, The Little School, Bellevue, WA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)

Starred Review This handsome anthology, expressing Americans' varied experience during wartime, is a fine selection of poems accessible to children. Each poem appears on one or two pages, accompanied by strong, yet graceful illustrations. Though not all  content is tied to a particular conflict and not all the poets are American, the poems work well together to represent book's sections: the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. Each section begins with a short quote from a philosopher, political leader, or military officer and a few brief comments on the conflict. Once the poems begin, though, readers will be transported from the broad view to the particulars by the thoughts, words, and experiences of people affected by war in different ways. The poems will touch readers with their sharp poignancy and undeniable power. Throughout the well-designed book, the expressive watercolor artwork enhances the poetry and gives a sweeping sense of unity and dignity to diverse points of view.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

As Hopkins (editor of <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Hand in Hand: An American History Through Poetry) takes pains to emphasize in his introduction, this anthology of 50-some poems is not about war itself but the “poetry of war” and the “emotions of warfare.” Arranged in sections corresponding to eight wars, from the American Revolution to Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War and the current war in Iraq, the entries include classic choices (Stephen Crane, Walt Whitman) and orthodox subjects (a rousing call to “press on” during the Battle of Bunker Hill; the unease of the Civil War drummer boy on the eve of a battle), as well as famous poems used unexpectedly, like Langston Hughes’s “Dreams” paired with a picture of an eagle (possibly “broken-winged” like the bird in the Hughes poem) holding an olive branch, in the Iraq War section. Over half of the poems have been commissioned for this book, however, and most of them sound prosaic next to their more distinguished antecedents (“A young widow trudges home,/ her pockets bulge with wild mushrooms./ Dare she eat them?/ What else can she feed her four hungry children?”). It may be Alcorn’s metaphor-laden watercolors, with their heavy irony and bold graphics, that hold the audience’s interest longest. Ages 8-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

Some 55 poems memorialize America's wars from the Revolutionary War through the Iraq War, touching on both bravery and sacrifice, emphasizing, according to anthologist Hopkins's introduction, "the emotional impact." Illustrator Alcorn uses iconic imagery and proportions informed by the great American muralists of the last century to deliver a quietly emotional punch. Many of the poems are reprints of well-known masters (Whitman, cummings, Teasdale), while others are newly commissioned from the ranks of today's children's poets (Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Betsy Franco, Jane Yolen). The poems vary from elegiac to angry; some are piercingly incisive, while some do not directly address war at all. This is perhaps one of the book's great weaknesses; two of the Civil War poems revolve around the Underground Railroad, not combat. Most mystifying is the placement of two Langston Hughes poems, "Youth" (World War I) and "Dreams" (Iraq War); both seem oddly out of place. Another cavil is the omission of dates of composition of the poems, a device that would help readers understand both context and historical changes in perspective. A worthy but flawed effort. (Poetry. 8-12)