Gr 8 Up-This is indeed a fine place for a writer to start. It is not about mechanics and the rhythms of poetry. Instead, Appelt covers where ideas, inspiration, and feelings come from and encourages their expression in verse. Her poems are at times sensual, dramatic, or violent, and always rhythmic. They are fascinating, smooth, and "with it." In them, readers meet real teens and in a few words get to understand their needs, fears, and longings. The format is similar to Appelt's Just People & Paper/Pen/Poem (Absey, 1996). The first section is composed of 26 poems. The style is mainly free verse with a few poem structures. The book's weakest element is that for a how-to manual there is little variety of style. The strongest poems are "The Tattoo Dragon," a short poem with high appeal about a tattoo; "What He Knew," about graffiti and a crush; "Homecoming," about a short tenth grader dancing with a tall girl; "Dumpling," about child sex abuse; and "What He Took with Him," about leaving home. The second section explains each poem and encourages readers to write. Questions, ideas, and writer exercises are given. Paul B. Janeczko's Seeing the Blue Between (Candlewick, 2002) features more styles and 32 renowned poets. Appelt's title will be great for schools, YA collections, budding writers, teachers, and homeschool providers. Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, ID

Finally, """"In the Nurse's Office,"""" """"The Fat Girl"""" and """"Notes Passed Back and Forth in United States History, Seventh Period"""" are just three of the more than 20 original offerings included in Poems from Homeroom: A Writer's Place to Start by Kathi Appelt. Divided in two, the book offers free verse in the first half; Part II uses the work to spark adolescent's own writing. (Aug.)

In the title entry of this collection, Appelt writes, Poetry is a home for all my yearnings / each poem a separate room. She demonstrates what she means in her combination of original poetry and a prose section that explains her motivation for writing each poem and offers exercises to help young poets get started. The poems range in style from villanelles to acrostics to free verse, and almost every one features a character who yearns for something: Jimmy, lost in the blues of his air guitar; a clerk at a late-night food mart pining for a customer; the twirling queen of Dogwood, Texas who quietly leaves town because it's hard to be a twirling queen and a person too. The poems frequently shine with humor and tender, memorable images: the cream colored cat, wild in her loneliness, that's left behind when a boy leaves his childhood home. But it will be Appelt's prose encouragements to young writers that will draw readers most. Clear, thoughtful ideas for creating original work mix with a contagious, what-is-there-to-lose approach: At the very least you'll write a really, really bad poem. I write lots of those. A warm, instructive resource for teens and teachers alike.

Appelt, best known for her books for younger readers ( Bubba and Beau, Best Friends , p. 328, etc.), has also taught poetry to children and adults. <p>Appelt, best known for her books for younger readers (<i>Bubba and Beau, Best Friends</i>, p. 328, etc.), has also taught poetry to children and adults. Her own poems here describe the lives and longings of high-school students. From the boy who secretly washes the name of the girl he has a crush on from the boy's room stall to the girl who can't get over getting her driver's license, Appelt focuses on the large and minute dramas of teenage life, giving readers a springboard for their own writing. The 26 poems in the first section are followed by a page about each poem--describing Appelt's inspiration and techniques, and suggesting starting points for poems about a similar longing. Though most of the poems are free verse, there are a few in standard forms, or which employ some device. There is a villanelle, a sestina, and haiku, as well as a series of acrostics, and a "poem in five acts," with a voice and imagery evocative of Shakespeare, about the two teenagers who are playing Romeo and Juliet in the school play. Occasionally, Appelt's adult sensibility comes through too strongly (in a poem about what a boy takes with him when he leaves home, in which the nostalgia feels like the mother's; or in a series of elegies for "those we lost too soon": Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain . . . ; but most of her poems will speak directly to her readers, who will also appreciate her suggestions, and her excellent bibliography of adult books on writing. (<i>Nonfiction. YA</i>)</p>