Book Reviews by Carol Neeland for LS 5603: Literature for Children and Young Adults

Summary:

What is Goodbye? Is a collection of poems by Nikki Grimes. The speakers of the poems are Jesse and Jerilyn, who are brother and sister. Through the poems they learn about, reflect on, and learn to deal with the death of their older brother Jaron. Jesse and Jerilyn alternate speaking and give the reader an opportunity to experience what each one is feeling and to learn that people deal with death and sadness in different ways.

Critical Analysis:

It is evident through the touching way that the poems are written and the feelings expressed in them that Nikki Grimes has had some experience coping with the death of a loved one. The book ends with an author’s note which she says, “There is no right or wrong way to feel when someone close to you dies. I found that out at fifteen when my father died.” Ms. Grimes has written a book designed to help young people deal with the loss of someone close to them by identifying the feelings that are common after the death of a loved one. 

Jesse is Jerilyn’s younger brother. The voice in his poems indicates that he is just a young boy. All of Jesse’s poems rhyme and have strong rhythmic patterns. They are written in short verses, almost like a nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss book. The rhyming patterns reflect the type of poems he might read or hear at his age. Immediately, we know which character’s head we are in when we hear Jesse’s poems. Here’s an example: 

Saturday is here at last.
Time for soccer! What a blast.
Sun is shining. Skies are clear.
Weatherman’s been wrong all year. 

This poem starts out lighthearted; the regularity of the rhythm and rhyme add to the feeling of joy that Jesse conveys in his verse. Like a child, Jesse forgets about the sorrow of his brother’s death and the implications that death has on his own life. It’s not until the last verse that Jesse remembers that Jaron has died: 

“Do I have to mow the lawn?
It’s not my turn. It’s –” Oh. He’s …
Seasick stomach. Run outside.
Grab my bike and ride, ride, ride… 

Even though the word “gone” is not written, it is there in the context as well as the missing word that must rhyme with lawn. This is one of Grimes’ fabulous examples of skillful language. Jesse doesn’t want to say it, or even to think it, so the word is left out with enough linguistic evidence planted to know what the word is. 

Jerilyn is a little older than Jesse. Most of her poems are in free verse which is more like the kind of reading a young adult might be reading more often. Jerilyn’s verse is full of imagery and figurative language. For example, in the poem “Why” she writes,  

We both know sense
is like shadow.
Chase it till you sweat,
and all you’ll get
is a handful
of nothing.” 

Jerilyn’s mother can’t stand for anyone to talk about Jaron, but Jerilyn feels the need to talk. In “His name” she says,  

I might not miss him
half as much
if his silence
didn’t ring
so loudly. 

Most of Jerilyn’s poems are in free verse with occasional rhymes thrown in, especially when she is feeling happy. For example the last poem “Photograph-Poem for two voices” speaks of how the family is whole again and taking a new family photograph of just the four of them. It doesn’t mean that they don’t miss Jaron, just that they have realized that they can go on without him now: 

It’s time
for a new photograph.
Squeeze in close. 

Don’t laugh.
Hold that pose!
Wait till you see it, 

Jesse and me,
a new kind of family. 

One thing that I thought was interesting and unusual about the book is that it never says how Jaron died. In a way, I found this disappointing. As I read through the poems there were hints about the day that he died. Jerilyn says that she yelled at him that morning. Clearly, his death was sudden; the family members are all in shock. When I read the poems entitled “Mad” I began to wonder if Jaron had killed himself: 

From Jesse 

You promised I could
always count on you.
You swore you’d teach me
everything you knew… 

You’re nothing but a lying little rat.
You left me, Jaron.
I hate you for that! 

From Jerilyn 

…Death has satisfied
your appetite
for attention.
You should be
happy now, Jaron.
Just don’t expect me
to forgive you. 

I know that anger is one of the stages that the grieving go through, so his death could have been an accident. However, these words seem to indicate that Jaron chose to die, which makes me think that it was suicide, not an accident. With suicide, there is a feeling of guilt for those who are left behind, which would explain some of the mother’s actions, especially giving away Jaron’s clothes so quickly after his death and not allowing anyone to say his name. As I said, it bothers me not to know how he died. I know that I should focus on the poetry and on the feelings and that knowing how he died is more like a plot in a novel, but I do think I could empathize better if I knew what caused his death. 

Raul Colon’s drawings help convey the mood of many of the poems. They do not appear on every page, thus giving the reader time and space to develop his own mental images for the poems. This is a touching, and artfully constructed collection of poetry.  

Review Excerpt: 

The following is an excerpt from a review in School Library Journal: 

Grimes’s novella in verse is a prime example of how poetry and story can be combined to extend one another. When their brother dies, Jerilyn and Jesse cope with the anger, confusion, and the silence that grief brings to their family. Jesse’s rhyming verse faces his older sister’s free-verse comments on her experiences. When Jesse hits a home run in a league game soon after his brother’s death, he glows, “I took off around the field,/legs pumping like lightning!/I slid into home plate clean./Man, I’m so cool,/I’m frightening!/-What am I supposed to do,/spend each minute crying?/I wish I could please you, Mom,/but I’m sick of trying.” Jerilyn muses, “It’s his right to smile,/isn’t it?/To be delirious?/So what if I don’t understand?/This ghost town,/draped in shadow,/is desperate for/a few more watts of light.” Grimes handles these two voices fluently and lucidly, shaping her characters through her form. Colon’s paintings in muted colors combine imagism with realism to create an emotional dreamscape on nearly every page. The clean design combined with the book’s short, easy pace and small size give readers a comfortable place from which to listen to the characters as they make their way from “Getting the News” to “Anniversary,” and finally to “Ordinary Days.”
-Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA 

Ms. Lindsay’s comments truly hit the mark on this book. The verses that she chose to quote capture the essence of Jesse and Jerilyn’s personalities and describe their unique reactions to Jaron’s death perfectly. Jerilyn is protective of her little brother, especially because their parents seem to ignore both of them. The picture that accompanies “First Fear” also captures their relationship well: Jerilyn is holding Jesse, Jesse is holding the dog.  

Connections: 

If I were teaching this book I would have the students write about a subject that is meaningful to them while emulating the styles of Jesse or Jerilyn. The Jesse poems would rhyme and have strong rhythm. The Jerilyn poems would be in free verse with strong imagery. Each of the poems could discuss the same situation but from two different points of view. 

Another idea would be to interview parents or others about someone they know who has died and to try to express that person’s feelings in free verse format and/or through artwork. A book like Earl A. Grollman’s Talking About Death: A Dialogue Between Parent and Child would be helpful for initiating a discussion about death. If the students have had their own experiences with the death of loved ones, of course, writing about these would be even more meaningful. 

Bibliographic Data:

Grimes, Nikki, and Raul Colon. What is Goodbye?. 1 ed. New York: Hyperion, 2004. ISBN Number: 0-7868-0778-4

Lindsay, Nina. “What is goodbye?” School Library Journal (2004),
http://reviews.schoollibraryjournal.com/bd.aspx?isbn=0786807784&pub=sl  (accessed March 1, 2008).

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