H IS FOR HAIKU

H Is For Haiku: A Treasury From A to Z by Sydell Rosenberg and Sawsan Chalabi finds fun and poetry in everyday moments.

The text is by the late poet Sydell Rosenberg, a charter member of the Haiku Society of America. It walks readers through relatable and seemingly mundane moments of normalcy, but it's in those "mundane" moments that readers most relate to the book: readers admire a sleeping cat, watch other children practice playing the recorder, and appreciate the sunflowers on the side of the road. These are all activities that children can see themselves in, and readers comb through the alphabet one letter at a time, experience a new haiku with every page turn (and sometimes more than one on a page).

The limited color palette most heavily features various tones of turquoise, orange, and yellow, and the mixture of different types of media creates a very solid sense of depth within each new little world we experience. Perhaps my favorite part of this book, though, is the handwritten font. While the focus of the book is clearly on the structure of the haiku as an art form, the handwritten font is incredibly playful and allows for further accessibility for young readers. It appears in different colors and orientations on each page, encouraging further interaction with the illustrations and gets readers thinking more about the structure of words and how individual words come together to form a more solid narrative/haiku.

H Is For Haiku: A Treasury From A to Z published from Penny Candy Books last week!

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