  | What you need to be warm Author: Gaiman, Neil | |
| Price: $23.28 | ||
Summary:
In 2019, in response to a refugee crisis, Neil Gaiman asked his Twitter followers: What reminds you of warmth? Over 1,000 responses later, Neil used the replies from across the world to inspire him to write a poem in aid of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. It reveals our shared desire to feel safe, welcome, and warm in a world that can often feel scary.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (08/15/23)
School Library Journal (09/01/23)
Booklist (09/15/23)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (00/11/23)
The Hornbook (00/11/23)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 09/01/2023 PreS-Gr 4—The plight of refugees in the cold winter of 2019 led Gaiman to solicit responses from his followers on social media about what it means to be warm. Weaving threads together from these suggestions, he created a lyrical free verse poem that beautifully captures warmth on many levels that will resonate and challenge readers. Warmth is "a baked potato," "trust," or even a stranger in a dark place holding out a "badly knitted scarf." Each spread, illustrated in muted tones of black, gray, white, and orange, captures the sentiment of the poem and evoke the challenging circumstances refugees face, and the simple acts or moments that can provide warmth. Many artists contributed their work, and each has a statement at the end detailing their response to the poem and the choices they made with their illustrations. Young artists could be given the same challenge to add their vision of warmth based on the text, and young poets could be asked to continue the poem with their own ideas. VERDICT Highly recommended. Useful in art or language arts classes, this title would also serve as a gentle but challenging, introduction to social studies or current events units on the contemporary refugee crisis or migration throughout history.—John Scott - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Booklist - 09/15/2023 During the UN Refugee Agency’s fundraising for Syrian refugees as cold weather approached in 2019, Gaiman (a goodwill ambassador for the agency) took to social media to request impressions and memories of warmth. Thousands responded, and he wove the recurring themes into a poem, here turned into a picture book. Some ideas of warmth are simple and familiar: knitted blankets, crackling fires, steaming baked potatoes. Others are more beautifully specific: an infant asleep between parents, loved ones’ smiles, tinking radiators. The cozy atmosphere chills with depictions of fleeing families making long treks, and warmth becomes a distant memory until something like a simple scarf is held out as a reassurance that all are cared for, that everyone has “the right to be here.” The text is spare and evocative, the descriptions both reassuring and realistic. Twelve artists fill spreads with striking grayscale illustrations punctuated by orange highlights, and in the endnotes they expand on their visual interpretation of each verse. A moving meditation on what it means to be safe and warm in a difficult world. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.
