Review: Lemonade by Bob Raczka

Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word
By Bob Raczka
Illustrated by Nancy Doniger
Roaring Brook Press
ISBN: 9781596435414
$16.99
Grades 1-6
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Give me one month and every word in the English language and I can write you a bad poem. One year? You’ll likely get about the same result. You could say I have difficulties with the form. That being my background, I marvel at books like Lemonade, that operate within very limited guidelines yet manage to produce top notch results.  A book that will amaze and then enlighten. That’s a pretty solid one-two punch.

In creating this collection, Raczka was inspired by the one word poems of Andrew Russ.  As explained on the first page, Russ will take a word – rain, for example – and craft a poem using only words that share the letters “r” “a” “i” and “n”. Here’s what it looks like:

rain

i
ran
in

These guidelines are fairly simple in explanation, but I would venture to guess quite difficult in execution. Raczka takes the concept and runs with it, creating one word poems for all sorts of words – bleachers, friends, and bicycles among them. Each poem gets its own page. On one side the word is introduced and illustrated, and on the other the poem appears neatly arranged. Some are funny:

earthworms

a
short
storm

worms
here

worms
there

wear
shoes

While other simply and effectively capture a moment in time:

bleachers

ball
reaches
here

bases
clear

cheers

When an author sticks to this sort of strict plan while writing in such a normally carefree form, I fear the finished product might not live up to the idea. I had a similar concern going into the recent Mirror Mirror. But just like Marilyn Singer’s ace collection of reverso poems, Raczka’s work is repeatedly wonderful.

Doniger’s watercolor illustrations use a basic red and black pallate and add a simple, effective visual element.

A book that will interest the pro poetry (pro-etry?) crowd as well as newcomers to the form, Lemonade is first-purchase material.

Review copy from publisher

Also reviewed by Literate Lives, A Year of Reading, Waking Brain Cells, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Poetry for Children, GreenBeanTeenQueen, Christy’s Book Basket.

Find this book at your local library with WorldCat.

Filed under: *Best New Books*, Reviews