Summary: Chocolate Dreams is a book of poems written by Arnold Adoff, the 1988 NCTE award winner. The poems are all about chocolate and the book is illustrated by Turi MacCombie with beautiful pictures of chocolate desserts and other chocolate things. While the book is not as vibrant as it might be if published today, it is still a beautiful book that will capture a reader’s attention. There is no table of contents in this book. It begins very simply with a letter to the reader encouraging him or her to each chocolate while reading the pages.
The most noticeable thing about Mr. Adoff’s poetry is the use of white space. The information about Mr. Adoff at the end of the book tells us that the use of white space is very important to his work. He believes in making “music with words and space”. Everything he writes, including his dedication and letter to reader at the beginning of the book, has unusual and unique use of the white space on the page.
Quality: The poems in the book have a familiar quality to them as most readers will understand and share Mr. Adoff’s love of chocolate. The poems have concrete meaning, with experiences that are likely to be part of the reader’s life at one time or another. Take for example the poem “I Love My Mom. I Love My Pop. I Love My Dog. I Love My Sheep.” where Mr. Adoff describes the necessity of eating the top off of a chocolate covered cherry so that you can get your tongue into the center and lick the center filling.
These poems do not rhyme and are hard for me to describe. They have a cadence to them that comes in large part because of the way they are typeset; the way in which the white space is used. At first, I did not like this about the book and it was only after several readings that I began to appreciate the brilliance of Mr. Adoff’s writing. Some, that I would never have described as poems, are the ones I like best and that evoke great sensory images. For example, “The Straw” tells a tale of the straw being invented by a boy who fell into a vat of chocolate milk. In the end, he meets his demise by falling into a milk carton-making machine and ends up in pieces all over the world.
Appeal: I believe this book of poetry should be shared with high school students. I don’t think children younger than high school age will understand the cleverness of Mr. Adoff’s writing. Younger children will not understand much of the vocabulary or references made in the book. For the high school student, however, I believe this book would be very appealing.
My Favorite: My favorite is Mr. Adoff’s version of Hansel and Gretel. It is rather long so I will only include an excerpt of the end of the poem; but to explain, Mr. Adoff creates a situation where Hansel and Gretel are captured by a wicked witch who only feeds them broccoli and apple juice; they get very strong and finally escape to return home. Here is the remainder of the poem:
“Life In the Forest, Or: Bad News… Good News… Bad News …”
Upon hearing the wondrous tale of their
broccoli behavior and escape, their
parents vow to buy only broccoli and
apple juice forevermore. And
Hansel
and
Gretel
are put to work chopping wood to pay
for all this green goodness. Healthy
and tired and sad, they fall asleep
each night so hungry for a brown morsel
of mouth-melting chocolate … thinking of
the candy house in the forest… and the
kindly face
of the
smiling
witch.
Use: I think I would use this book with high school students to showcase how creative they can be in their own writing. I would show students that through the use of white space in writing, different effects can be created. This is also a good book to showcase how poetry can be created without the need of rhyming terms.
I also think that because of the use of white space, different student might give a different oral interpretation of each poem. It would be interesting to separate students into groups of two. Give each pair the same poem with an assignment to individually review the poem and give an oral reading of the poem. I anticipate that the rhythm and cadence might be different for each individual. If so, it would be a good exercise to show how poems can affect individuals in different ways.
References:
Adoff, Arnold. 1989. Chocolate Dreams. Ill. Turi MacCombie. New York, N.Y.: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books. ISBN: 0-688-06822-7.
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