Review - Ah, Autumn

Ah, Autumn (Breath of Joy)
by Kathy Joy
Date: 2018
Publisher: Capture Books
Reading level: A
Book type: picture book
Pages: 44
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

In the cycles of the earth, glory rises and falls in the breeze. There is nothing like crisp Autumn air to make you feel alive.

Let all things autumn slip under your skin in the rakishness of dying blooms. A harvest time souvenir, Ah, Autumn is a deep breath of colorful joy. Inhale the pages to be filled with happiness and thanksgiving. Everyday life is now a novelty.

Ah, Autumn should be shared at the harvest table and with the best of friends! Exhale brisk, musky memories and yearnings penned by radio D.J. Kathy Joy, a girl with two homes: Colorado and Pennsylvania.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Despite NetGalley classifying it as such, this is not a children's picture book. It's a pretentious free-verse poem with adult-level vocabulary illustrated with free photographs, bad Photoshop work, and a free font that that makes the whole thing look really amateurish (it's not Comic Sans... but it still looks awful).

There's nothing in here that's inappropriate for children, but it's simply not suitable for them:

Things of grace that
are borne in death,

Whispered prayers in
sacred spaces
and
hauntingly elusive
echoes of
voices gone before.

Does it
make it poetry
If I insert
random capitals
and
Line breaks?

Needless to say, the grammar here drove me batty. I understand artistic license, and I'm willing to overlook certain things... if they're done consistently. Here, though, they're not. Grammar and punctuation be damned; some pages just look like a bunch of words were thrown at them.

I'm also not a fan of books that are illustrated with stock photos. I mean, most of the photos are nice and all, but there are a few pages where the layout and/or Photoshop skills leave something to be desired.

I don't know who I'd recommend this to. A lot of adults aren't going to be impressed by the look of the book (what is that awful font that's used throughout?!) and kids probably don't want to sit through a poetic ramble where they don't understand half the words. Who's the audience?

I'm afraid I don't know...

Thank you to NetGalley and Capture Books for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 1/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 1/5

Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 1 out of 5