(or wherein I once again prove that the parts of poetry which intrigue me may not be what I am supposed to be talking about)

You know what I really appreciated about Tremulous Hinge: the layout of some of the poems. Like the indentation. Seriously. Or there’d be a thin poem, maybe only eight or nine spaces worth of letters on each line. Then each verse would be only lines long and it would be these little rectangles like a path down the page.

I can hear one of my high school English teacher’s sarcasm right now: That’s what you think is important about poetry?

Yes. I mean, how do the poets know

   where to end lines and

how much to

             indent?

So I read Tremulous Hinge and thought about that. The poems that were over a page were too long and could have been tightened. One poem mentioned a Catholic grandfather, which made me think of my Catholic grandfather. The poems felt working class, close houses, thin walls lacking insulation (I don’t mean that in a negative way, because I read what I just wrote and it sounds super classist. I mean more like you felt you were walking through that sort of neighbourhood as you read the words; some of the poems drew the scene like a photograph).

I wonder how one becomes a poet. It’s so different than how I see the world. Sometimes I feel like an alien when I read poetry. I didn’t mind so much with Tremulous Hinge though.

Tremulous Hinge by Adam Giannelli went on sale April 15, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

After my previous realization that physics is hard, I needed to go back to basics with physics so easy that even a baby could understand it. And here was General Relativity for Babies up for review on Netgalley, so I grabbed my copy and well, it’s a board book (ages zero and up the back tells me) with the very basics of general relativity laid out (flat space, curved space, mass curves space, lots of mass in small place = black hole, etc.) The book ends with Now you know General Relativity! Do I? I already knew all of what the book defined. Cambridge University physics books hurt my brain and Baby University books are too simple. My pursuit of physics knowledge leaves me like Goldlilocks — nothing is just right (okay, except it ends up that things are just right for Goldlilocks, who eats the porridge and falls asleep in the bed, and then gets eaten by bears, I think. I can’t remember the ending, probably because my mind is filled with physics.)

It would be a cute book for the babies of scientists. I would have liked reading it when Tesfa was teeny. If they ever need someone to write Galois Theory for Babies, I’d totally do it. I love Galois Theory.

General Relativity for Babies by Chris Ferrie went on sale May 2nd, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

After getting the first book from a librarything giveaway, I got the second one from Netgalley. Score me getting free books!

Tesfa dislikes having me ask her questions about her books. So she did a book report for me instead.

The deets (including creative spellings):

The title of my book is: Super narwhal and Jelly Jolt
The author’s name is: Ben cLanton
The illustrator’s name is: (same)

Character:
My favourite character was: Jelly Jolt
Four words to describe this character:

1. cute
2. funny
3. nise
4. happy

Setting::
One place where the story happened was: when narwhal has a tie.
Three words to describe this setting:

1. funny
2. cute
3. very awesome

The Story:
Beginning: narwhal gets to be a superhero
Middle: narwhal plays with a sea star
End: narwhal and Jelly make a book

The book was:

My favourite event:
all of it!

Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt by Ben Clanton went on sale May 2, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.