91. The One Thing You'd Save

The One Thing You'd Save. Linda Sue Park. 2021. [March] 72 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: "Imagine that your home is on fire. You're allowed to save one thing. Your family and pets are safe, so don't worry about them. Your Most Important Thing. Any size. A grand piano? fine."

Premise/plot: The One Thing You'd Save is a verse novel that asks and answers the question what ONE THING would you save? It is set in a middle grade classroom--a teacher and her students. Each poem is written from a point of view of either the teacher or one of the students. Everyone gets a chance to participate in this homework assignment. As the conversation progresses, so do points of view.

My thoughts: I may be in the minority. I've been reading through some five star reviews of this one, and the consensus seems to be that it is wonderful, amazing, fantastic, marvelous, has potential for awards come the end of the year, etc.

I didn't dislike it. I appreciated that it required WORK. All the poems are written in sijo, a Korean poetic form of three lines of 13 to 17 syllables...the three lines can be divided into six shorter lines. (This information is found in an author's note.) 

I think there is substance to be found. If readers were to read it carefully through two or three times, each time they'd notice more, appreciate more, see connections that aren't super obvious on a superficial read through. 

But I didn't engage with it personally. I wanted to like it more than I did. I don't know if it was because it was poetry (which I struggle with sometimes) or the multiple points of view (sometimes one narrator resonates more with me) or the subject (I could have been putting up a wall so that I wouldn't have to think about it too closely.)  

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers