J. G. Remeng

Storypaws is a collection of 27 poems, mostly about animals, insects, and sunrises the author sees, though there are a few about other random observations. Each poem is accompanied by a photograph (2 in a couple cases where the poem is longer and takes up multiple pages.) I give the book a solid 4 stars for the photography- most of the shots are beautiful and invoke emotion. There are a couple where the intended subject (or at least the animal the poem is about, so I assume that they are supposed to be the focus of the photo) is at an odd angle or blends into the background and a little cropping or contrast would help to make the image PPP. Overall, very nice.

I'm not sure how I would categorize the poems- most of them are geared toward children and when paired with their respective photo would be a great way to introduce kids to poetry- especially poems that are rhythmic, but not necessarily rhyming. Mostly I would suggest an audience of 5-10, maybe 12 year olds. There are a couple that don't seem to fit the audience though- "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" is a reference younger kids might not understand, especially since more coursework is done on iPads than desktops lately. "Rest and Groove" is another that I didn't quite understand (I felt like it was about preparing an herbal tea, but I'm not sure- and not a subject young kids would necessarily care about.) Lastly "Table Tune-Up" seems to be for an older audience. It goes through the process of altering a table to fit a space and using "crappy" as an adjective isn't something I would personally use with my 5-8 year old kids.

*I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review*… (more)