The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets
selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters; illus. by Mercè López
Primary    Carolrhoda    40 pp.
10/24    9781728492100    $18.99

This collection features twenty poems about real-life mistakes each of the poets made in childhood. The contributors include Linda Sue Park, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Lacresha Berry, Jaime Adoff, Margarita Engle, Vikram Madan, and Naomi Shihab Nye, along with thirteen others; the poems are organized into four categories: “Oopsie-Daisy!” “Stuff Happens,” “Blessings in Disguise,” and “What Have I Done?” The wide range of moments captured include scoring a soccer goal for the wrong team, publicly mispronouncing a word, succumbing to peer pressure, skipping school, spreading gossip, hurting someone’s feelings—many relatable experiences. Each poem is accompanied by a prose paragraph by the poet describing the consequences of their mistake and what they learned. The poems themselves are narrative snapshots, sometimes rhyming, often in free verse, and rich in emotion and introspection. Illustrator López creates entire, emotive scenes with expressive faces, poses, and repeating motifs in the mixed-media art.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.