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Gr 4-6 Lonnie Collins Motion, the Locomotion of the title, is a New York City fifth grader with a gifted teacher who assigns her class to write different forms of poetry. The house fire that killed Lonnie's parents and the four years of trauma and slow healing that follow are gradually revealed through his writings. In a masterful use of voice, Woodson allows Lonnie's poems to tell a complex story of loss and grief and to create a ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

"You don't just get to write a poem once / You gotta write it over and over and over / until it feels real good to you / And sometimes it does / and sometimes it doesn't / That's what's really great / and really stupid / about poetry." Like Jack in Sharon Creech's Love That Dog (rev. 11/01), fifth-grader Lonnie has a teacher who introduces him to poetry and makes him believe in his writing. Woodson, however, more ably convinces us that her protagonist really does have a gi...Log In or Sign Up to Read More