The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets

by Irene Latham, Charles Waters, Mercè López (Illustrator)

Overview

Scoring a goal against your own team. Copying a classmate's schoolwork. Accepting a dare to jump down the stairs . . . and getting hurt.

This engrossing poetry anthology explores making mistakes and learning from them. Twenty brave poets―Linda Sue Park, Margarita Engle, Allan Wolf, David Elliott, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Lacresha Berry, George Ella Lyon, Jaime Adoff, Vikram Madan, Kim Rogers, Douglas Florian, Tabatha Yeatts, Jorge Argueta, Jane Yolen, Charles Waters, JaNay Brown-Wood, Irene Latham, April Halprin Wayland, Darren Sardelli, and Naomi Shihab Nye―share real-life mistakes they made as young people . . . and what happened next. Edited by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, with brilliantly evocative illustrations by Mercè López, this is a book for all who are growing and discovering and still figuring out who we are. (Which is to say . . . all of us!)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728492100
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/2024
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 11.25(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 9 Years

About the Author

Irene Latham is the author of more than a dozen current and forthcoming works of poetry, fiction, and picture books. Her work includes Charlotte Huck Honor Book and ALA Notable Children's Book Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship (co-written with Charles Waters) and the Caldecott Honor Book The Cat Man of Aleppo(co-written by Karim Shamsi-Basha). In 2016 she won the ILA Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award. Visit her at www.irenelatham.com.

Charles Waters is a children's poet, author, anthologist and actor based in Georgia. His book Mascot (co-written with Traci Sorell) has received an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor and a Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor. His other books (co-written with Irene Latham) include: African Town (winner of the 2023 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction), Dictionary For A Better World: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A—Z, Be A Bridge, and the Charlotte Huck Honor book Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes and Friendship. You can visit him at: www.charleswaterspoetry.com

Mercè López is an artist and illustrator who lives in Barcelona, Spain. Her illustrated work includes I Am Smoke and Big Problems Little Problems.

Editorial Reviews

"The strength of this collection comes from the authors admitting their mistakes and going on to explain the value of the resulting learning opportunities. A gentle reminder of the stepping stones making up the path to growth, discovery, and creativity."—starred, Booklist

From the Publisher

2024-06-15
Poets weigh in on childhood boo-boos and faux pas that still haunt them.

“My mother used to tell me, / ‘Think before you do.’ / I wish I would have stopped and thought / before I used the glue.” If readers are more disquieted than soothed by the notion that they, too, may wind up agonizing over flubs years, even decades, later, most of the poets at least try to point to positive life lessons learned. Not that they’re always convincing: Allan Wolf, for instance, claims that he learned to forgive himself for a soccer own goal he nonetheless still remembers scoring in fourth grade, and Tabatha Yeatts’ memories of performing well on a summer camp stage despite blowing off the rehearsals comes off as more of a humblebrag. Still, Linda Sue Park’s embarrassment at mispronouncing a word in class, and Jaime Adoff’s for insisting on pitching when he could barely get a baseball to the plate, had salutary results on their respective self-images, while Margarita Engle learned the value of thinking for herself after cutting off her braids at a schoolmate’s suggestion, as did Kim Rogers (Wichita) after playing the role of a white settler in an Oklahoma Land Run Day celebration. López reflects the multiracial cast of the contributors in her bright and energetic views of young people amid diverse family or other groups.

Comforting reminders that nobody’s perfect, infused with lessons large and small. (about the poets)(Picture book poetry. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews