What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?: Poems for When a Person Needs a Poem

9 Year old loves this book. When she kept wanting to check it out at the library, I figured it should be a part of our permanent library. Fun to read.

My 8 years old love to cuddle with us at night and read 2 poems each night! Love the illustration and funny poems too.

Summary: These mostly humorous poems are divided into eleven sections, such as How Are You Feeling Today?; School Stuff; About the Family; Home and Away; and Friends and Other People. As the title suggests, there are poems about glad topics, like a perfect day, home, and a fun “arithmetrick”, and others about sad topics, like divorce or an ex-best friend. Black, white, and blue illustrations are on every page. 112 pages; grades 1-4. Pros: Published a week after Judith Viorst’s 85th birthday, this fun collection shows she still excels at writing for an elementary audience. The topics are perfect for kids, and the poems have a good blend of humor and poignancy. Cons: Some of the lines of poetry were a little uneven, so the poems didn’t flow quite as smoothly as they could have.