Nikki Grimes's _Words with Wings_

The Plot: Nikki Grimes's Words with Wings (2013) was named a Coretta Scott King honor book in 2014 and tells the story of daydreamer Gabriella. Gabby's story begins with a poem entitled "Prologue" which explains how her parents decided on her name. Most of the poems focus on the primary narrative: Gabby's parents have just divorced and she and her mother have moved to a new town where she starts a new school. In addition to the focus on Gabby's changing home life, these poems also track her struggle in school and at home with being labeled a daydreamer. At school, most of her teachers remark that "her mind tends to wander," while at home her mother is constantly frustrated that she can't stay on task with her chores or doesn't seem to be listening. Gabby thinks this tension with her mother might have something to do with the fact that her daydreaming is something she gets from her father. The one teacher who seems to support her daydreaming is her English teacher, Mr. Spicer. When Gabby suddenly stops daydreaming, she becomes even more withdrawn and sad; it is her English teacher who encourages her by suggesting that her entire class spend some time every day writing down their daydreams. It seems that this helps her pay attention in class, and her mother begins to praise her for being such a great writer.

The Poetry: This short 83 page verse novel is comprised of mostly short free verse poems, with a few haiku and concrete poems. Eighteen of the poems are Gabby's "daydreams," and these poems are set off in a different sans-serif font and a slightly larger font size. Each of the daydream poems begins with the same refrain that focuses on the poem's title image. For example, the poem "Waterfall" begins:

Say "waterfall,"

and the dreary winter rain

outside my classroom window

turns to liquid thunder,

pounding into a clear pool

miles below,

and I can't wait

to dive in (30).

Most of the poems in Words with Wings fall into a similar pattern of using a key word to evoke an image. Mostly these poems are not extremely compelling, but they do work similar to that of Sharon Creech's Love That Dog in that they show a young person learning the intricacies of language and practicing at being a writer of poetry. A few poems in this collection incorporate interesting rhyme and imagery, but even these ultimately have endings that feel overly didactic or have a strange exclamatory clause at the end. For example, the title poem "Words with Wings" begins with interesting sound and imagery: "Some words / sit still on the page / holding a story steady" and "But other words have wings / that wake my daydreams," but ends with the phrase, "I can't help / but buckle up / for the ride!" (11).

The Page: The organization of Grimes's verse novel seemed a bit strange. At first it seemed that the daydream poems might have been flashbacks, but towards the end of the narrative it became clear that they were parts of her daydream journal. I am not sure that this was an effective organizational strategy.

Overall, Words with Wings is a fine verse novel. I give it three stars.