Pat Mora

"Two stellar vets come together to celebrate wordplay. In her introduction, Mora writes about her love of poetry and “the fun of listening to words, combining words, and playing with words,” emphasizing that each person is unique, so their wordplay will be as well. This leads into a marvelous collection of poems that extol the fun, adventure, and emotion that come with using one's words. Some of the poems are personal, like “Our Cottage in the Woods,” where a girl offers remembrances to her mother about their special place, where they snuggle, listening to the wind. The inventive “Who’s Inside?” asks children to find the animal that may be lurking within them. There are also odes to libraries and books, and singing and dancing, with each poem using Spanish words understood in context. Colón, whose artwork, here rendered in watercolors and colored pencils, always delves deep, brings a new level of excitement and exuberance to this. Children swing, sashay, and almost jump off the pages. His shapes and colors add to the feel of movement and fun in the oversize pages. A joyous invitation to put pen (or paintbrush) to paper."—Booklist, starred review

"Young bibliophiles, logophiles, and poetry lovers will cherish this collected volume of Mora’s verse, beautifully illustrated by Colón. Fourteen poems celebrate reading and writing, underlining the importance of literacy for child and adult readers. Mora’s love for language and wordplay is infectious; rhyme, alliteration, and onomatopoeia all make their way into the poems and will ensure lively group reading. Colón’s artwork, rendered in watercolor and Prismacolor pencils, is rich in dreamy blues and deep earth tones. The illustrations range from everyday scenes of whimsy to stunning views of canyons, imaginary landscapes, and playfully abstract interpretations of the text. Mora reminds readers throughout that writing inspiration is always within them: “Think of the faces, the colors,/the places you’ve been, the pictures/you carry inside.” Librarians and educators could easily use this title in lessons on creative writing, from poetry to memoir. Best of all, after reading, children may share Tomás’s sentiment in “Library Magic”: “¡Vámos! Let’s all go to the library/Join the fun, a treasure house that’s free.” VERDICT Perfectly suited to libraries, a top addition to poetry collections."—School Library Journal

"In this collection of loosely themed poems, including some previously published selections, Mora expresses her full-on love of language and everything it can create--from libraries full of books (“We belong together,/ books and me/ like toast and jelly/ o queso y tortillas”) to wonderful mouthfeels and sounds (“I collect words...that have a brown scent, cinnamon,/ that sweetly stretch, car-a-mel”). A few of the poems branch out into tributes to nature or family; in Antelope Canyon, she writes of “dark crevices echoing water’s roar/ for millions of years.” Mora works mostly in tightly phrased free verse, save for one acrostic poem, and some selections blend Spanish and English in literal ways (“Slide into a river of music,/ Resbala a un rio de musica”). Her openhearted enthusiasm and sense of wonder is always evident and inviting, and there’s plenty of “you go, young poet” encouragement woven throughout the verses. The fanciful, poster-like images by Colón, inspired by the radiant color work of Rufino Tamayo, match the verses’ earnestness and joy."—Publishers Weekly

"The virtues of reading and playing with words collide in Mora and Colón's latest collaboration. Mora begins with an appeal: "Let's read, let's write, let's explore galore!" The subsequent series of poems demonstrates the dual importance of bookjoy, "the fun of reading," and wordjoy, "the fun of writing." For the latter, see the second poem, entitled "Collecting Words," which encourages readers to treasure words like "ding-dong" and "sssssssssssssnake." Some poems follow a didactic arc ("Writing Secrets," for example, aims to reassure budding writers), but most bask in wordplay and whimsy with aplomb. "Our Cottage in the Woods" focuses on a mother and her child in the woods, the garden, the "cool creek" as they watch hummingbirds and bake and read together. In the wonderful "Antelope Canyon," the author describes the creation of a canyon, with "waterfalls / buffing sharp corners into curves, / careening around boulders." In the accompanying illustration, Colón's artwork shows a dark-skinned child at the bottom of a vibrant canyon gazing up at the night sky while an antelope does the same from above. Overall, the superb pictures feature a racially diverse cast--often with elongated, lively bodies--and landscapes full of curves and curls in bright, earthy colors..the author peppers Spanish phrases here and there to add some new layers to a gratifying collection. Joy indeed."—Kirkus Reviews

Pat Mora and Raul Colón's third picture book collaboration is a joyful, vibrant celebration of words, books and the imagination.

Mora's opening poem kicks the reading festivities off: "We belong/ together,/ books and me,/ like toast and jelly/ o queso y tortillas./ Delicious! ¡Delicioso!/ Like flowers and bees,/ birds and trees,/ books and me." Colón's accompanying watercolor and Prismacolor pencil illustration features a rainbow-colored girl happily snacking on toast and jelly, queso y tortillas, as she leans against a tree trunk, her body completely surrounded by books. In her non-quesadilla-holding hand is a book, hefty and old looking, clearly a classic. The next spread features the poem "Collecting Words," with a boy in a baseball cap capturing words with a net--"cinnamon," "rambunctious," "wiggle"--as if they were butterflies. The following spreads slowly populate with more and more figures until "Library Magic" features a library full of children, all comfortably enjoying books.

Back and forth the poems and illustrations go, upbeat and exuberant with bright colors, or softer, gentler color palettes combined with the rolling intensity of poems like "Antelope Canyon": "For millions of years, water sculpted this sandstone,/ winding and swirling around rocks, waterfalls/ buffing sharp corners into curves,/ careening around boulders,/ crashing in flash floods, torrents gushing,/ polishing as they roiled and plunged." Mora's poems--in English with Spanish phrases sprinkled throughout--are descriptive and entertaining, wholly accessible to the young reader. And Colón's illustrations perfectly match Mora's text, his art dynamic, full of life and color...Bookjoy, Wordjoy is exactly that: Pat Mora and Raúl Colón's collaborative celebration of all things books and words.