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[The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB)
selected Outside The Lines: Poetry
At
Play as a Blue Ribbon award winner for nonfiction,
2002--one of only
11 children's books selected in that
category for the year.
The BCCB also made the book a "starred" selection for April,
2002.] ]
Scholastic Storyworks (the magazine)
included a
poem ("Leaf Pile") as the leading full-page feature in its
October, 2002 issue. (Not accessible on the
Web.)
*Bulletin of the
Center for Children's Books (BCCB)
Reviewer: Deborah
Stevenson
This
sparkling synthesis of text,
layout, and
art offers twenty-two poems about youthful play that
refuse to allow imprisonment in a book to keep them static. While they might be fairly termed concrete
poems (and a few of the entries, such
as “Leaf Pile,” engage in the familiar pattern-poem
format), that’s almost too staid a term for these
verses, with their thematically appropriate interest in depicting
action and movement rather than things. “Rolling
Downhill,” for instance, joyously depicts the swiftly changing,
gradually slowing viewpoint of a downhill gyration (“Green
green/blue blue/ . . . blue/ green/ blue/ blue/ THROUGH!”), the
words stacked and slanting on the page, separating as the pace of
the tumble slackens. There’s some calorie-burning reading
here, as in “Skipping,” where the reader follows the
skipper by shifting back and forth from left to right (two words
each time, of course) on a progress up the page (“Left foot/right
foot,/here I/go now”). . . . Bouncier
but no less interesting than Janeczko’s A Poke in
the I (BCCB 6/01), this will give kids a chance to leap
into poetry.
[From the BCCB's award-selection
text:] Clever text, imaginative
visuals, and creative layout combine to make a sparkling and playful
collection of poetry in action on the
page.
Booklist (the review
journal of the American
Library
Association).
Ages 4-9. Design, pictures, and words . . . work together
in this playful concrete poetry, where the words jump all over the
pages in shapes and arrangements that fit the
subjects. When the poem is about flying kites, the
one-word lines begin at the bottom of the page and reach up and high
to the top. In "Frisbee," the words are in a big circle. In
"Softball," each player in the double-page spread has a brief verse
about the game
School Library
Journal
Reviewer: Jane
Marino
Grades 1-3--A visually delightful book of
concrete poems that celebrate playtime pursuits like swinging,
Frisbee, and softball. The words glide, bounce, or are stacked over
the page, reinforcing the movements and activities they describe.
Full-page watercolors combine with small, decorative illustrations
to create a playful impression. . . .
Publisher's Weekly (Starred
review):
(unsigned)
The poems in this
high-energy debut
collection mimic the shapes and forms of the children's games they
celebrate. A poem about a girl on a
swing follows her arc as she flies through the air, leaving a trail
of words across the page; the poem "Tic-Tac-Toe" requires some
knowledge of the game in order to follow the verse's flow (or else
it teaches the rules as readers go along). First-time illustrator
Gibbon's understated watercolor spreads and vignettes accent Burg's
whimsy without overshadowing it. "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," for
instance, shows only the guiding hands of the onlookers around the
edges, together with a subtle sprinkling of balloons and confetti to
imply a party atmosphere. In a
tour-de-force, one of Burg's briefest poems puts words to the act of
looking at sky and ground while rolling down a hill: "Green/ green/
blue/ blue/ green/ green/ blue/ blue/ dandelion!/ green/..."; a
dizzy boy lies at the bottom of the slope as his
panting dog comes running. The adventurous verses try everything
from kite-flying to castle-building. Young readers will . .
. appreciate the way their experiences can be preserved on the
page. Ages 5-up.
Kirkus Reviews
Children
trying to navigate these cheery concrete poems would be well-advised
to follow the rhymes, because the words might read back and forth to
evoke a game of "Catch"; up from the bottom, down from the top, or
both ("Slide"); in spirals, swoops, or even from the center out
("Tic-Tac-Toe [A Battle Plan]"). Gibbons gives the verses plenty of
elbowroom, setting them against spacious stretches of lawn, sand,
wide, city streets or, sometimes, unadorned white space. Musician/songwriter Burg writes of happy times
on ball fields, playgrounds . . . beaches . . . and back
yards. If he closes with an invitation to "Connect
the Dots" that may have children reaching for a pen or pencil, still
the visual challenge of reading this poetry can be engrossing, and
to judge from the popularity of Paul Janeczko's collection, A Poke
in the I (2001), concrete poetry may be enjoying a renaissance.
(Poetry. 7-10)
Borealis
Magazine:
Reviewer:
Christine Alfano
Brad Burg's Outside the Lines is a
compendium of concrete poetry that gives playful shape to ordinary
childhood experience. The opening poem,
"Catch," works rhythmic mischief and perfectly captures the cadence
of a ball flying between two mitts. Single syllables
are split into two neat columns so that the eye must travel back and
forth across the page, giving time, as it were, for the ball to sail
through the air and smack the leather of the other glove. The poem
reveals "THE / SLEE- / PY / SOUND / OF / SUM- / MER'S / CLOCK." . .
. .
Language
Arts (the
Journal of the National Council of Teachers of
English).
Reviewers: Junko Yokota and
Mingshui Cai
[The book]
celebrates many traditional childhood games. .
. In “Catch,” the words
fly back and forth across the page like a ball. In “Connect the
Dots,” readers must follow the numbered dots in order to read the
words in the correct order. “Tic-Tac-Toe” requires knowing the
strategies of the game to read the “battle plan” in order. The book
is a cohesive visual experience through
which readers gain as much from the design of the illustrations as
from the clever layout of the text in offering concrete
poetry. The acrylic paintings complement the text
perfectly and enhance the comprehensibility of the poem. Readers
will have an opportunity to reflect on each poem and think about how
it relates to the games played in childhood.
The Free
Library of Philadelphia
Twenty-two exuberant poems provide a
delightful glimpse into a child's world
of play. Poems shaped like a game of catch, tag, or
a jungle gym will fascinate the reader. Rebecca Gibbon's lively
watercolor illustrations splash across the pages and complement the
unique construction of each poem. Children in Grades 3-5 will enjoy this immensely!
Riverbank Review (of Books For Young
Readers)
reviewer: Renee Victor
For anyone who
considers poetry to be a sedate art, here are twenty-two poems that just won't sit
still. The titles alone suggest motion --"Swing,"
"Slide" . . . and the poems' ingenious positioning on pages bursting with dynamic, vibrantly colored
illustrrations keep the momentum going from cover to
cover. . . .Another kind of movement . .
. is the deft shift betweeen different characters'
perspectives. In "Softball," [the author] succinctly voices the
individual concerns of . . . all nine players in the field . .
Burg's language is consistently simple
and accessible, infused with the childlike exhiliration of the
moment at hand. Outside The
Lines is an enthusiastic celebration of play. Its
energy is as hard to resist as the
enticing red, gold, and orange mound in "Leaf
Pile," which can't be ignored despite
Dad's order to "keep things neat." The children try to hold back,
but, as they say, "when we see them piled up high, our legs tell us
it's time to fly." Likewise, Burg's
poems make it impossible to stand off to one side and observe.
Readers are compelled to jump in.
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Amazon.com
Reviewer:
Emily Coulter
Contrary to grownup
advice, most kids know that drawing (or
doing anything, for that matter) outside the lines can be a whole
lot of fun. Concrete poet Brad Burg and illustrator Rebecca Gibbon's
rolling, swinging, skipping, bouncing book of "poetry at play" pays
delightful tribute to this concept. Each of Burg's
22 poems traces the patterns of the games they celebrate: "Catch"
requires a dizzying feat of visual agility, as each word appears all
the way across the page from the next, like a ball zooming from
player to player. "Paper Airplane" follows the flight
pattern of a newsprint jet until it winds up in the peeved teacher's
hair. And "Slide" climbs slowly up
the steps "all the way up to the tippy-top," only to plummet down
the other side: "ooh what / a ride / I slide / and glide / I slip
and / slide and / slide and / slide and / then I / stop." Gibbon's
watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations are playful and
appealing. . . .
Amazon customer
reviews
Reviewer: Roz
Levine
Brad Burg introduces poetry
at play, 22 delightful and
intriguing poems that literally run, skip, bounce,
swing, float, and slide across the pages demonstrating each playtime
activity. Mr Burg's poems are filled
with energy, rhythm, and motion, as your eyes follow
each cleverly worded activity from playing catch, tag, or soccer,
throwing a frisbee, flying kites and paper airplanes, and climbing
the jungle gym, to blowing bubbles, watching fireflies, jumping in a
leaf pile or on your bed, and building a sand castle. Rebecca
Gibbon's bright and charming illustrations enhance each verse, and
help bring it to life on the page. Together, words and art offer an imaginative, interactive
collection that is both a feast for the eyes and the
ears. Perfect for youngsters 5 and older, Outside The Lines is a marvelous introduction to "concrete" poetry,
and a fun-filled masterpiece of creativity, not to be missed.
[Note from Brad: I've
tried to supply reviewers' names, where
available. It's very gratifying that reviewers
conveyed what the book is about with so much care, and so
vividly, and with such appropriately poetic use of
language.]
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