Helen Frost offers readers glimpses into the lives of the students and teacher who comprise a fictional fifth-grade classroom. This novel in poems underscores how little we sometimes know about the people whose lives intersect our own each day and how much small acts and observations can matter. Part I of Spinning Through the Universe introduces the inhabitants of Room 214—the students, their teacher, the night custodian—each voice speaking in a different poetic form. Each poem reveals something about the individual that, more often than not, no one else in the class knows about or sees, at least at first. The exception is Naomi, an exceptionally observant girl who notices more than anyone. Their lives are spinning independently, but occasionally they collide—in moments of tension, in acts both kind and unkind. Part II of the book is comprised of acrostics. Frost has taken a line from a poem in Part I for each character and made it the framework for the acrostic poem in that person’s voice. The lines she has chosen are, again, revealing. And just as the idea of an acrostic suggests a connectedness, the individuals in Room 214 are becoming more and more of a community—a constellation—as the school year progresses. Frost provides extensive notes on the various forms of poetry she used. (Ages 10–13)

Engrossing tales from the fifth grade

Every child is like
A little world with ever-changing weather,
Nights and mornings. And somehow, here we are,
Spinning through the universe together.

Unforgettable students in this fifth-grade classroom reveal their private feelings about birth and death, a missing bicycle and a first kiss, as well as their thoughts about recess, report cards, fitting in, and family.

Using a rich array of traditional poetic forms, such as sonnets, sestinas, and acrostics, Helen Frost interweaves the stories of the kids in Room 214 and their teacher. A final section giving detailed analyses of the twenty-two forms will be of special interest.