Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing

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Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing

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Overview

A poignant, humorous collection by acclaimed poet Gary Soto

The fleeting emotions of teenagers, as changeable as the weather, ring true in these emotionally resonant poems. Told from the point of view of both boys and girls, narrators of various ethnicities fall in love for the first time, pine over crushes, and brood over broken hearts. Tender, lighthearted, and surprising, this collection will capture teens, tweens, and anyone who remembers what it’s like to be a young person in love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544002890
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/29/2012
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	830,979
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Gary Soto's first book for young readers, Baseball in April and Other Stories, won the California Library Association's Beatty Award and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. He has since published many novels, short stories, plays, and poetry collections for adults and young people. He lives in Berkeley, California. Visit his website at garysoto.com.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Young teens will enjoy the 'love sick' puns and the metaphors, lyrical and sad, that show that there is poetry in the way that they speak."—Booklist "The free-verse poems all somehow ring true: appropriately corny, rich with image, accessible and believable . . . the simple, open design encourages browsing, and readers flipping through are bound to find the right words when they need them."—Horn Book "Since many of the narrators are 13 or 14 years old, these short, accessible poems will appeal to middle schoolers, especially. A great addition to poetry collections."—School Library Journal

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Teenagers pine for, revel in and recover from early loves and relationships in Soto's (Mercy on These Teenage Chimps) collection of nearly 80 poems, divided into two sections: "A Girl's Tears, Her Songs" and "A Boy's Body, His Words." From those in love, there are moments of joy-"Love, I like how your hair is shaggy,/ That your sweater, when wet, smells of dog./ And that you itch when I'm around" as well as poignant humor: "I checked my e-mail and my cell phone/ A hundred times a day./ You were a fake. I was the one who helped/ You in math. You didn't learn anything!" says a girl in "For the Love of Dogs." Certain poems take a more despairing tone, as in "An Act of Kindness," in which a boy muses, "The world is cruel. People have knives,/ And even their teeth look like knives." Ultimately, the effect is akin to experiencing all the seasons in one day, as the simplicity of the unrhymed verse thinly veils the undercurrent of complex emotions at play. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)
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Publishers Weekly

Gr 6-9
Soto skillfully captures the voice and emotions of young teens in love. The free verse poems are grouped together in two sections: "A Girl's Tears, Her Songs" and "A Boy's Body, His Words." There are selections about first kisses ("I haven't been kissed, /But I'm waiting"), young love ("We were young, not yet fourteen./What chance could our love have/In a world so rough?"), jealousy ("You narrowed your eyes at me,/Flashed red coals from deep inside you"), and rejection ("When she said no,/I took my loneliness to the river"). In "Danger" a boy says, "If I knew you were in trouble,/I would take a shovel and shovel my way/To your house, six blocks away,/And risk live wires hissing like snakes./Love, I know, can be hazardous to my health." Since many of the narrators are 13 or 14 years old, these short, accessible poems will appeal to middle schoolers, especially. A great addition to poetry collections.-Ann Nored, Wilson Central High School, Lebanon, TN

School Library Journal

Soto's volume of tender and truthful love poetry for teens is divided into two sections, the first titled "A Girl's Tears, Her Songs" and the second called "A Boy's Body, His Words." The deceptively simple poems examine love from many angles in verses that are by turns funny and poignant. In "Obsession," a girl talks about having so many pictures of her boyfriend that her optometrist says, "A curious case. Young lady, there's a picture / Of a boy at the back of your retinas." "Vegan for Your Love" features a boy bemoaning all the types of food he must relinquish (and the four pounds he's lost!) for his vegan girlfriend. In "Faces" a boy draws happy faces on his girlfriend's fingertips only to inexplicably fall in love with another girl later that day. When he breaks the news-and his girlfriend's heart-he looks at her fingertips: "the ink had run. / Each little face / Was sobbing, dropping / Little black tears." A gentle, affecting collection. (Poetry. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

"Young teens will enjoy the “love sick” puns and the metaphors, lyrical and sad, that show that there is poetry in the way that they speak."—Booklist

" . . . the free-verse poems all somehow ring true: appropriately corny, rich with image, accessible and believable . . . the simple, open design encourages browsing, and readers flipping through are bound to find the right words when they need them."—Horn Book

"Since many of the narrators are 13 or 14 years old, these short, accessible poems will appeal to middle schoolers, especially. A great addition to poetry collections."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher