Review: Walt Whitman: Words for America by Barbara Kerley

Kerley, Barbard. (2004). Walt Whitman: Words for America. New York: Scholastic Press. 56 pages. ISBN 0439357918.

Awards/Selection Lists: 
-Sibert Honor Book
-California Book Award
-ALA Notable Book
-Best Children’s Books -- Publishers Weekly
-Best Illustrated Books -- New York Times
-Best Book Award -- Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Author's Website: www.barbarakerley.com

Brief Summary:  Walt Whitman is known far and wide as one of America's greatest poets, characterized by his long white beard and wavy locks. What most people don't know is that Walt Whitman was sympathetic, perhaps even empathetic, of the plight of the down trodden, those souls who suffered and persevered though all odds were against them, and to bring their struggle and their glory to light, he wrote about them, in verse, in notebooks, and eventually typeset them into books, wherever and whenever he could. When the Civil War threatened to take his brother, he travelled to the camp to tend to him, as he tended to other wounded soldiers in hospitals where they convalesced. He tried to cheer their spirits and rally them, singing the praises of American, and bringing his words to every person. This was his passion, to not only make the world better, but to make it equal.

Personal Reaction: I liked this book, though it is more than likely a little short for the requirements of this assignment. I also loved the illustrations but felt that as grandiose as they were, there should have been more text to back them up. Walt Whitman is a fascinating and passionate character, a gentle soul who wanted nothing more than to make people feel better. He is one of the best poets ever known, a man of the people, having grown up in Brooklyn, and living of limited means. He was accessible, he was almost valiant and I think, while this book is good, particularly so for those with limited attention spans, I wanted to learn more, and I was disappointed that the book focused primarily on the influence of the war, and little else.

Front/Back Matter: Front cover, dedication page, title page, content, author's note, illustrators note, a note on poems, selected poems, sources and copyright page.

Content Evaluation: The focus of this book was very obviously on the full page illustrations. While they were beautiful, they also distracted the reader from the text, which I thought could have been more comprehensive. While there was a lot told about Walt Whitman, it almost all circled around his involvement in the Civil War, and as we all know, there is much more to learn about a man's life than once story. The selected poems are a nice element, so that the reader can get to read the full passages described in the book, now knowing what the backstory was, but the bibliography (sources) is very small, and leaves little for further exploration.