Module 1: African American Poetry

Module 1: African American Poetry

Booked

Ivana Marmolejo

Bibliography

Alexander, Kwame. Booked. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. ISBN: 9780544570986.

Summary

Booked is a verse novel that is brilliantly written by Kwame Alexander. It focuses on a main character named Nick Hall, a thirteen-year-old, eighth-grade student at Langston Hughes Middle School of the Arts. (Alexander 2016). It details his life through experiences of love, school, soccer, parents, bullying, and self-respect. Many of the poems rhyme and can cover several pages while others may be a single stanza composed of four short lines. There are several different types of poems. Some poems are written like a narrative, some are free verse, some are conversational, and even a few acrostic poems are featured. Because the style of poetry changes, it is easy to keep the reader engaged. Another engaging aspect of the book is that the placement of the words vary poem to poem. An extra feature readers will enjoy are the vocabulary words that are effortlessly seamed into the poems. Nick’s father is a linguistics professor who wrote his own dictionary called Weird and Wonderful Words. (Alexander 2016). Throughout the verse novel, the reader will experience new and unconventional vocabulary that keeps drawing you in, one word at a time. Some of the underlying themes are overcoming obstacles, freedom, and forgiveness. Malapropism is a comical tone that seems to seep in every now and then at just the right moments. 

Analysis

All age groups will enjoy reading Booked. Middle school athletes, especially boys, will enjoy reading this book. Being that it’s a novel, it might initially deter some readers. However, a librarian can note that it’s a verse novel and not as long as a typical novel. Once students start reading, they are guaranteed to love it. 

Unrestrained, Alexander shares the raw emotions of his teenage male character, which is likely a breath of fresh air for our young readers. The honesty, vulnerability, and unfiltered emotions Nick experiences make the reader feel that you know him, the protagonist, on a personal level. Some topics are lighthearted, such as healthy competition between two best friends, while other topics can be sobering, such as feeling like you want to die after learning that your parents are divorcing and life will no longer be the same. (Alexander 2016).

The poetic elements are what breathe life into this book. It is rich in figurative language. An example of an extended metaphor is a poem called, Thoughts. “It does not take/ a math genius/ to understand that/ when you subtract/ a mother/ from the equation/ what remains/ is negative.” (Alexander 2016). The book is emotionally engrossing. An example is when Nick wrote the “Limerence poem” about April and is caught by Ms. Hardwick who makes Nick walk to the front of the room to read the poem to the class. The reader will be equally horrified as Nick and suffer third-hand embarrassment when Ms. Hardwick is reading the poem. (Alexander 2016). This verse novel will make you laugh, can make you cry, and will make you want to hug your loved ones tightly. 

Poem/Excerpt and Activity

 

Class Ends

when Ms. Hardwick

reads your assignment

then runs

into the hallway

cachinnating*

like she’s about to pee

in her polyester

Cachinnate [kak-uh-nayt] verb: to laugh loudly (Alexander 2016).

As mentioned above, vocabulary is a significant part of the story. I’d like students to use an uncommon word that they find interesting, funny, or unfamiliar and attempt to write a sentence with that word and possibly a poem. I could pull out all the words in the novel that Nick defines on the pages, and students could practice making sentences and writing sentences with those words. After writing down their sentence or short poem on a small sheet of paper or even on a note in their phones, students could walk around camps reading their poems to classmates and teachers. 

Another activity could be to mimic Nick’s father and how he created his own dictionary of Weird and Wonderful Words (Alexander 2016). I think students would enjoy creating their own dictionary together in the library. Students could work in pairs, investigate, and come up with lists of words that they will find to be “wonderful.” (Alexander 2016).