My review of this book can be found on my Youtube Vlog at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMdlquQtLCk

Enjoy! ( )

This is a collection of poems of different types. Most of them are free verse, but there is also a sonnet and concrete poetry. All of the poems in the collection are told from the point of view of a teenage girl, probably one in seventh grade. She is in her second year at her current school, but the problems that the speaker voices are a bit too immature for high school. The poems are organized into three sections, "Autumn", "Winter", and "Fall". Taken together, the poetry does a wonderful job of examining the trials of the adolescent girl and conveying the emotional perspective of the speaker. I was especially taken by the poems about the speaker's father, as a father of a daughter. The idolization she imparts on him was profound. I would highly suggest this book to teenage girls, although boys would likely find it a difficult read. The book could also be excerpted for use as model poems in a poetry unit.

Girl Coming In For A Landing was different from most other novels in verse that I’ve read. While all of the poems did work together to tell one story, I felt as if each poem worked better on its own than as one big flowing story. It just felt disjointed to me.

The story was told from first person point-of-view, therefore we never even learned the name of our main character. While there was a small cast of side characters they were not a main focus of the story nor were they memorable enough for me to even remember their names. The first person point-of-view did not work to the benefit of the reader. Most of the time whenever the main character would say “we did this” or “we did that” you had no clue which person she was talking about. I was always thinking to myself you did that with who?? WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!

My favorite thing about the book was all of the illustrations, which were done by Elaine Clayton. Each page was like a work of art, tying in with each poem and really helping to bring the words to life. For me, this really added to the overall reading experience.

I feel like this book focused more on the poetic side of things, than telling a complete story. My favorite poem from the book was the passage entitled “TAKING VIOLIN.”

“I open my case
tighten my bow
pluck a string to tune.
I love to listen to it chirp across the echoing room.

My friends are in class
reading about
a famous English King.
But I am training this wooden bird upon my arm to sing.”

Overall, I just wasn’t able to connect with this story. It ended and I was just like huh? It all felt so pointless. Like what did I even just read about for the last hour? ( )

Wayland, April Halprin

Girl Coming in for a Landing: A Novel in Poems

Illustrated by Elaine Clayton. 2002. 144pp. $14.95 hc. Random House Children's Books. 978-0-3758-0158-7. Grades 9-12.

Our narrator takes us through a school year by way of the poems she writes about the many challenges she faces--among them popular girls being cruel, a crush that turns into a relationship that turns into an ex-relationship, and her burgeoning desire to be a writer. Her story reads like the journal of a particularly close high school friend, and teens will likely find they have shared some experiences with the heroine at some point in high school. The black and white art bordering the poems adds to the book's journal feel; the collage style of the art makes it seem as though the heroine has clipped the images out of various places and pasted them into her diary. Teens will easily be able to relate to the heroine's emotions and frustrations--not just the big ones, but the small ones, like irritation with teachers and upset at being teased at a drama club meeting. Recommended for poetry fans and those who are looking for a more experimental method of storytelling. ( )

I am really coming to love books written in verse and want to read more of them. This shows that a story can be told without using a more traditional storytelling style. In this instance, it tells of a teenage girl coming of age and going through all of the things that teenagers go through. ( )