Reviews

Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Poems by Shanan Ballam

inkbound's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective

4.75

timreadstoday's review

5.0

What a book.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. So much so, it inspired me to want to write and compile something similar in the future.

How Shanan was able to keep each poem standalone and yet all of the poems told the entire story of Red Riding Hood. I admire that.

I also admire that Shanan was able to keep her voice intact, in spite of telling the story from so many character perspectives.

This was such a good book and would recommend it to all.

januaryghosts's review

5.0

Such a creative and moving collection of poems, and I am so glad that I had the chance to pick this up and get so much creative inspiration from it. I highly recommend this!

maestokes11's review

5.0

Shanan was one of my favorite instructors at Utah State University. I adore her investigations here into violence: can we transcend harm? What traumas are we doomed to repeat? Here, the wild longs for the domestic, and the domestic longs for the wild. Background objects of the fairy tale are characterized and burst open. I find the ending of the collection startling and triumphant. My favorite poems are:
Red Riding Hood Opens the Door
Red Riding Hood's Basket
Wolf Watches Red Riding Hood, Spring
Grandmother Waiting for Red Riding Hood: The Footprint
Red Riding Hood Dreams of Wolf
Grandmother Sees Wolf in the Garden
Grandmother Dreams of the Field Mouse
Grandmother, Inside Wolf