Book Review: WHAT IS GOODBYE?
*NOTE: This book review was created for a class at TWU.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Grimes, Nikki. 2004. WHAT IS GOODBYE? Ill. by Raul Colon. New York, NY: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 0786807784

2. PLOT SUMMARY:
WHAT IS GOODBYE? is a book of narrative poems in the two voices of a brother and sister, Jerilyn and Jesse. In the space of a little more than a year, each works through shock, pain, sorrow, remembering, healing, and moving on after the death of their older brother Jaron. The poems illustrate the different ways the two cope with their brother's death and with the reaction their parents have to his death. Although the family appears to have been irreparably torn apart by the tragedy, time heals, and the book ends with the family unified again.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Nikki Grimes and Raul Colon collaborate to handle tough issues surrounding dealing with the death of a close relative. Although the book is somber, the poems of Jerilyn and Jesse, written in distinctly different styles to reflect the children's different voices, detail the stages of grief beautifully. Beginning with hearing the news of Jaron's death, the brother and sister react similarly, but express their shock differently. Jesse's simple rhymed lines reflect his younger age and temperament: "My ears aren't working./My hearing's broke./Mom's lips are moving./Is this some joke?" In contrast, Jerilyn's unrhymed verse is filled with similes and metaphors such as "Daddy told me in a whisper/sharp as a switchblade," and "Mommy also hid/her eyes dull coins/peeking from the pockets/of her lids."

Recalling the death of my own grandfather when I was young, I could immediately identify with shock, numbness, and then anger in the days following his death. In particular, I remember being upset that I was supposed to play with all the relatives who had come over after the funeral, when all I wanted was for them to leave so I could walk through the house remembering all the little things he used to do. Just like Jerilyn, who reflects,

"I wander through this
silly crowd, wondering why
no one tells the truth.
Dead is dead.
Not "gone away."
Not "lost."
Not "passed" - as if
my brother's life
were some test
he got a good grade on,
and now he's gone.

I didn't understand all the euphemisms that were meant to ease the hollowness I felt inside. In many parts of the novella, Jerilyn and Jesse react differently, Jesse acting out, and Jerilyn turning inward, but their closeness as siblings is poignantly revealed in the poems entitled "First Fear" which are placed together on the page, intensifying the sense that they occur simultaneously. Jerilyn observing, "Look at him/head buried/in the black cushion/of Lucky's coat,/tears raw as rain," while Jesse worries, "Me and Lucky/two of a kind./Boy and dog whimpering./Does Jeri mind?" The poem ends with the two hugging, beautifully illustrated by Colon, whose details such as the eye pattern on the wallpaper visually illustrates the inner landscape of the children, who feel like everyone is watching them to see if they will crumble under the grief.

This inner landscape is revealed in Colon's lithographic illustration which accompanies Jerilyn's version of "Rush" In the poem, the girl wants her mother to hurry up and return to the way she was before Jaron died, and in particular, yearns for the closeness she felt with her mother when "...we were/holding hands/the way we used to." To illustrate this, Colon depicts mother and daughter, dressed identically, each sitting in an upper right hand corner of the picture, hands clasped on the lap. An inset between them shows the daughter's and mother's hands reaching to hold one another. In an exquisite detail, the pattern on the carpet at their feet has keyholes, symbolizing that holding hands is, in Jerilyn's mind, a key to regaining her relationship with her mother.

Both children grow as time passes, and Jesse's poems become more complex, incorporating more imagery, similes, and metaphors, as when he says, "Folks wind my sadness like a clock." The children mature, are able to simply enjoy a day, mend the relationships with their parents, and learn to love the memories of Jaron each both hold dear. Jerilyn comes to an understanding that this loss has made her appreciate her own life more, too. She writes,

Ordinary days
are golden,
like ancient coins
recovered from
a treasure hunt.
More of them is
what I want
now that I've learned
to spend
or save each one
as if
it matters.

In the end, both speak together in the poem for two voices "Photograph." The family is unified in taking a portrait, and the poetic form reflects that. WHAT IS GOODBYE? touchingly illustrates both how to approach a difficult topic, and how form can enhance and enrich function. I wish I had had this novella in verse to help me through my grief when my grandfather died.




4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Booklist: "In poems that alternate between voices, Jerilyn and Jesse describe their complicated, private thoughts as they grieve for their beloved brother."

School Library Journal: "Grade 3-8–Grimes's novella in verse is a prime example of how poetry and story can be combined to extend one another."

5. CONNECTIONS
*This book may help teachers and librarians broach a difficult subject such as death. Other books for children dealing with death can be found at: http://www.barrharris.org/barbooks.html#For
*Explore other books written in two voices, such as Paul Fleischman's classics JOYFUL NOISE (ISBN 0064460932), and Jim Harrison's FARMER'S GARDEN (ISBN 1590781775)
*Use the two voices in the story to discuss both voice and point of view, then try writing two-voice poetry using readwritethink.org's lesson plan at http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson391/two-voice.pdf