Jessy Randall

Jessy Randall, the Curator of Special Collections at Colorado College, and blogger at Library Shenanigans used her librarian skills to track me down and offer me free copies of her books in exchange for an honest review. While I've never quite figured out how to review poetry, I'll give it my best shot!

This is a collection of humorous poems on various topics from childhood, to work, to parenting, to popular culture. And pantsing. There's a heartfelt poem pantsing. There is also a selection of "poetry comics" - simple drawings and diagrams where a picture says 1000 poetic words. This is funny stuff. If you like humor and poetry, this is for you.… (plus d'informations)

Jessy Randall, the Curator of Special Collections at Colorado College, and blogger at Library Shenanigans used her librarian skills to track me down and offer me free copies of her books in exchange for an honest review. While I've never quite figured out how to review poetry, I'll give it my best shot!

In this volume each poem starts with a line from a Mother Goose rhyme, usually "There was an old woman..." and then goes off entirely different direction. Usually there's an anachronism putting that old woman in contemporary times with modern sensibilities, with no shortage of feminism. Sometimes it's a lot more absurdist or has meta-commentary on nursery rhymes. But each poem is quirky and funny. I enjoyed this book… (plus d'informations)

Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

Wanda Lowell and Dora Nussbaum have been best friends for as long as everyone can remember. So often are they in each other's company they've been dubbed The Wandora Unit by their classmates, leaving some to wonder which girl is which.

Entering the final months of their senior year, subtle shifts in the landscape of their lives alert Dora to the possibility that she and Wanda may not have as much in common as they used to. As the girls and their friends struggle to finish compiling their final hurrah in Brighton High's poetry magazine, the contributions they and their friends make to Galaxy serves as a bread crumb trail of clues to the unraveling of the girls' relationship.

If I had to sum up Jessy Randall's THE WANDORA UNIT in a single word, it would be "quirky." Full of interesting, offbeat characters, THE WANDORA UNIT is a quiet study of relationships, group dynamics, teenage life in a small town (complete with just one or two restaurants *everybody* frequents), and how the people around us shape who we are. This book is a wonderful trip back in time, stripped of all the distracting gadgetry so prevalent in the new millennium, which allows our focus to remain on the characters themselves and how they drive the story.

I'd especially recommend it to anyone entering their last few years of primary education, people who've been out of high school for (at least) ten years or more, and anyone fond of 80's pop culture.… (plus d'informations)