A Maze Me: Poems for Girls
*Starred Review* Gr. 8-11. In the thoughtful, inspiring introduction to her latest collection of original poems, Nye encourages young readers to write three lines in a notebook every day: "You will find out what you notice. Uncanny connections will be made visible to you." The following poems draw from Nye's observations about nature, home, school, and neighborhood to make connections to a girl's inner world. The meaning in a few selections is oblique, particularly in spare lines that read like a zen koan. Most poems, though, speak with a powerful immediacy. When the speaker finds her mother's braid in an attic, there is the sharp, lonely realization that her parents will die: "I don't want to be / eighty years old / looking at the braid / all by myself." In other poems, she worries if a crush notices her, but there is a strong, contagious confidence in her voice: "Does he see me gleaming / in my chair?" In beautiful lines, the speaker's hopes extend to the wider world, and she wishes that, like tree frogs, humans had "something / we could / all sing / together, yes." A wide age range will respond to these deeply felt poems about everyday experiences that encourage readers to lean eagerly into their lives and delight in their passages.Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved