Out of Wonder, by Kwame Alexander, with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, illustrated by Ekua Holmes

 Out of Wonder, by Kwame Alexander, with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, is a collection of poems by these authors gathered into one work in order to honor poems and poetry from around the world. This work contains works that honor such poets as Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and Rumi, among many others. This purpose created a collection that is key to any general collection, in that it doesn’t just celebrate poetry from one part of the world, instead providing a variety of the styles of works from many different cultures. Kwame Alexander Preface at the beginning of the book displays his passion for words and his love of reading and poetry and his frustration that so many works of poetry for children are less than engaging, explaining clearly that he wants to ignite a similar love of words and poetry into generations of children to come. 

As previously mentioned, the intended audience for this book is young children. Kwame talks about his love of poetry when he was young in the preface, and how he wants children to learn to love to read as much as he did and still does. 

The scope of this book encompasses three authors writing in the styles of twenty iconic poets from around the globe. There are twenty authors being memorialized and twenty poems overall. Some of these poets, such as Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson, are quite well known, while I didn’t recognize the names of others. Some are more recent, while others are much older. The poems are organized into sections with titles such as Got Style?, In Your Shoes, and Thank You. Each of these sections involve their own patterns in the works of poets, such as having a specific style or perspective. There is a table of contents, however there is not an index. There is, however, a short biography of each of the poets being celebrated at the end of the work. 

The works of poetry contain a variety in meter, sound patterns, and language, depending on the author that the work is based on. With three different poets covering the works of twenty different authors of poetry across different time periods, the works and their language, meter, sound patterns, and rhythm are very appropriate.

 

The illustrations are largely relevant to the works that they are based on. For example, one page, which features a Haiku about a classroom, has a picture of a young girl sitting at a desk in what appears to be a classroom. The illustrations are each beautiful and unique, yet don’t distract from the poetry. Instead, they are integrated with the poetry by taking up the majority of the page, with the words placed strategically to draw the eye.

Alexander, K., Colderley, C., Wentworth, M., & Holmes, E. (2017). Out of wonder: Poems celebrating poets. Candlewick Press.