Peaceful Pieces

Peaceful Pieces

Peaceful Pieces

Written and illustrated by: Anna Grossnickle Hines

Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2011

28 pages

Poetry Book

This poetry book describes all types of peace: at home, in the world, and within oneself. The poem Sure Cure is my favorite in this book because it describes siblings fighting and their mom makes them stand nose to nose and they start laughing and no longer want to argue with each other. I also like the poem What Would You Choose? because it shows the sweet and tender heart of the child who plays with the girl that no one likes. The poem Weapons describes hurtful words as a gun. Soldier Daddy is also a heartfelt poem included in this book. It is about a little boy wanting his laughing daddy back from the war.

The illustrations in this book are actually handmade quilts reproduced in full color. I love how Hines uses bright vivid colors on some pages and darker colors on other pages. The colors really go along with the words of the poems in the book. The text placement is informal and the poems are placed on double-page spreads.

This book would be appropriate for any elementary school child. This book of poems could be used to teach a lesson on what it means to be peaceful. The book contains a list of peacemakers including Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King Jr., and several others. It tells what each one of these people did and gives a quote from each one. Students could research peacemakers and share with the class what they find. A social studies lesson could also be done to research the history of quilt making.

Peaceful Pieces won the Henry Holt Books for Young Readers Award and the 2011 Stars from Booklist and PW Awards. I would definitely use this book in my classroom.