Rating: *** 3 stars

Selected by Belinda Hollyer, illustrated by Susan Hellard,
She's All That! Poems About Girls.
Kingfisher.

Ages 8-10

Here's an anthology which captures the mood of our times and the 21st-century girl.  There are poems about basketball, dancing, arguments and love.  There are some old favourites from Hilaire Belloc, Ogden Nash, Carl Sandburg and Delmore Schwartz alongside some new names like Jane Dang, who speaks of the many facets of the name of a Vietnamese girl and Grace Butcher who writes beautifully about basketball and track shoes which 'strike sparks from stones'.  The poems reflect our diverse and energetic culture with a wide variety of poets, themes and subjects.  We go from Allan Ahlberg and his Betsey Street Booters football team to Valerie Bloom's 'likkle girl' in 'Who Dat Girl?': 'Who dat wide-eye likkle girl/ Staring out at me?/ Wid her hair in beads an' braids/ 'An skin like ebony?'

Nikki Giovanni's poem 'the drum' sums up the mood of this anthology: 'daddy says the world/ is a drum tight and hard/ and i told him/ i'm gonna beat/ out my own rhythm.'

Helen Taylor
January 2006, No. 156

Guide to the rating system:
***** 5 stars, unmissable
**** 4 stars, very good
*** 3 stars, good
** 2 stars, fair
* 1 star, poor