All Kinds of Poetry: New Poetry: Hope is a Ferris Wheel by Robin Herrera

Hope is a Ferris Wheel by Robin Herrera

Bibliography 

Herrera, Robin. Hope Is a Ferris Wheel. New York City, New York: Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks, 2014.

Review

Hope is a Ferris Wheel is the story of a girl (Star Mackie), Emily Dickinson, and finding hope in the hopeless. After moving to a trailer park in California, Star, a ten-year-old girl, makes it her mission to start the most successful club her school has ever seen. After a rough start with the self titled "trailer park club," the innocent Star regroups and creates the "Emily Dickenson Club". From the inspiration of her boring and lame homeroom teacher Mr. Savage, Star finds a deep connection to the Emily Dickenson poem "Hope is a Thing with Feathers," and thus starts her journey to loving poetry.

Robin Herrera, the young, up and coming author, masterfully weaves together a poetic novel. Through a combination of list poetry, prose poems, and haiku's sprinkled throughout, Herrera builds a unique piece of literature. The list poetry comes in the form of vocabulary homework. Mr. Savage, Star's lame and boring teacher, assigns the class vocabulary words weekly. These vocabulary assignments, or list poetry, become an insight into Star's inner conflicts. Herrera uses the vocabulary list to help the reader understand the inner struggles both superficial and serious that Star navigates through. The prose poetry, true to its definition, comes in the form of paragraphs. The paragraphs
lead the reader through the novel focusing on Star's feelings, thoughts, fears, dreams, and most importantly her hope for the future. Lastly, Herrera comically uses haiku's to demonstrate the clubs attempts at poetry. These poems offer a comedic relief for the reader.

The hallmark of Hope is a Ferris Wheel is the honest, innocent, and strong voice of Star Mackie. If I did not know any better, I would assume a ten-year-old wrote the novel. The voice is true to the thoughts, actions, and feelings of a ten-year-old that the reader finds themselves in their own ten-year-old brain. Herrera's word choice for Star creates a girl who is observant about life and truly wants to seek a larger purpose. Star is the perfect balance of blind hope and realistic dreaming, and it is through word choice, voice, and structure that this beautiful character and novel is created.

Spotlight

Hope is a ferris wheel-
It takes you Low and High
And when you reach the Top.
It's like you can touch The Sky!
And when it takes you Down-
Hope becomes A Thing
That, When you're getting Off,
You take With you to Bring.

- By Star Mackie

The entire novel is written around Star writing this poem. It takes several attempts and quite a few life experiences to complete this poem. The poem is a clear mimic of Emily Dickenson's Hope is a Thing with Feathers, but it is written to express Star's recent realizations about life, hope, and the future.

Follow-up Activity 

A subplot of this story is the author study that Star and her friends experience in the Emily Dickenson Club. As a follow-up activity, I would ask my students to choose an author of poetry that they would like to study. I would have the students research and evaluate the poet, then create a book or small collection of unique poems that share the qualities of that author.