Monday, August 25, 2008

Keeping the Night Watch by Hope Anita Smith


The first one
is the hardest:
"family" dinner.

The abstract is hidden because it may contain spoilers. If you would like to read the full summary, simply use your cursor to highlight the next few lines and it will magically appear.

Abstract: A thirteen-year-old African American boy chronicles what happens to his family when his father, who temporarily left, returns home and they all must deal with their feelings of anger, hope, abandonment, and fear.

Henry Holt and Company; 73 pages

2 comments:

Teresa said...

Wow! The imagery is incredibly powerful in Smith's poetry. This is a must-read because I'm going to be talking about this one in January.

Jen said...

Oh, this book was so... I'm having trouble putting into words the emotions I felt while reading it. It was So Something, anyway. The characters were painfully well-defined, and there were enough poems to allow me to see the subtle shifts throughout it.

The illustrations truly played a heartwrenching role as support for the poems. I thought CJ and his father looked somewhat similar, but that only stands to reason as you consider CJs adopted role in the family. The picture of the grandmother made my throat hurt and nose prickle.