Holbrook's (Wham! It's a Poetry Jam: Discovering Performance Poetry) collection of 40 poems communicates moments of insight and surprise, but many poems begin with a perceptive detail and then carry it to an abstraction that undercuts the impact of the mood or message. The strongest poems adopt various perspectives to examine friendship. The poet riffs on the language of finance for one such verse ("Investments"): "Securities/ I've borrowed/ from the pockets/ of your mind/ and tucked them/ secret places/ to be returned/ in kind." Her look at a child's disenchantment with a friend in "Mistrust" is just as effective: "What truth wraps up,/ mistrust unties./ You can't hold/ friends/ in a/ pack/ of lies." However, "Amused" begins in clever wordplay ("A muse./ The accidental thought,/ the sticky ruse/ my daydreams brought") then picks up mixed metaphors ("Till someone yells/ and hurry pushes/ my dawdle to respond,/ but not for long"), eventually devolving into a berating for procrastination ("Again./ Again./ I'm late"). Cartoonish line drawings contribute little to the verses' meaning. The poems that tap into the most pressing experiences of childhood, many having to do with connection to others (e.g., in "Pout": "No use/ acting nice to me/ when I'm stuck/ in a pout./ I can't let your/ niceness in/ until my mad/ wear/ out") will be most resonant with readers. Ages 9-up. (Apr.)
