Firetalking

Prolific picture-book author Patricia Polacco, whose work is always somewhat autobiographical, turns to actual autobiography in this non-fiction title for younger readers. Fans will be unsurprised, of course, at the many ways in which Polacco's art has intertwined with, and built upon her life experiences, but even they will learn a little something new, and will enjoy seeing photographs of some of the real-life people who have featured in her books.

Firetalking, a title derived from the word Polacco's Ukrainian babushka would use to describe their storytelling sessions, is an engaging and informative autobiography for younger readers, giving them a little insight into the life of a popular artist and author. This is the second entry in show more the Meet the Author series I have read - the first being Verna Aardema's A Bookworm Who Hatched - and overall, I think it a very worthwhile collection. Recommended to all young Patricia Polacco fans, and to any young student who must write a report on an author. show less

I've read most of Patricia Polacco's books, and I very much like her character development and illustrations. this book highlights her life, both as a young child when, after her parent's divorce, she and her brother spent wonderful summers with their father.

Most, if not all of her books are based on real-life experiences, and the images and writing are both a joy to see and read.

In Firetalking, Patricia Polacco outlines the events of her own life as a children's author. She was born on Jully 11, 1944 in Lansing, Michigan. Her mother's side of the family is Russian, while her father's side is Irish, and tells the story of how her mother's family came to America in one of her books. As a child, her grandparents would sit her in front of their fireplace to eat snacks and listen to their storytelling, called "firetalking". Polacco realized as a child that she suffered from dyslexia, but pushed on and eventually graduated with a PhD in art history. All of Polacco's stories are based off of her life from childhood to present day. Now, she has grown to be like her grandprarents: firetalking with her own family in show more front of the fireplace.
"Firetalking" has a lot of good pictures that help illustrate features of Polacco's life, especially those cultural elements that some people wouldn't catch onto such as the Pysanky eggs. I appreciate that pictures of her own books were included to show examples of how she'd written about the mentioned events in her life. However, the flow of the book felt very off, to me. Instead of a nice chronological retelling of her life, Polacco seems the prefer retelling her story in snippets of events and people. This made the book seem more like a random stream of facts rather then a well constructed and engaging story. However, the detail she gives in the explanations of her culture and her husband's culture is much appreciated. This is a good book for someone who's already read and fallen in love with Polacco's work, but I'd say it'd be hard for someone who'd never heard of her to really appreciate. show less

Polacco gives us a detailed look into her life. I loved looking through her childhood photos of her family and herself. It was really as if we were getting to know her. Something that really touched me was how she opened up about her dyslexia. She wrote how she felt she was dumb, but a teacher informed her of the disability. Polacco is now a very successful person. Any child having a disability can read this and feel inspired that they can become anything they want to be.

Once again Patricia Polacco shares an amazing story with readers, her own. Polacco writes about what inspires her, her own life, her family, her books, her illustrations, and more. This book inspires readers to want to read all of Polacco's books.

I really enjoyed the way the author told about her writing process and the things that influence her, mainly the stories about her family. Since the author is also dyslexic, this is a great tool to show children with disabilities that they can succeed in whatever they want to do.

I read this book as part of an author study on Patricia Polacco. It was a nice to have the background information. It helped to see the connections between her life and her stories, especially since many of her books are stories based on people and events in her life. She has some photographs in this autobiography that show up as illustrations in some of her books. One thing to note is that this book does not have many features of nonfiction text. There is no table of contents, headings, or an index. This makes seeking out specific information somewhat difficult. It's written more as a narrative but it does cover a pretty broad spectrum of information about her life.