Kim Rogers Website
Kim Rogers Website
Kim Rogers Website

BOOKS — ANTHOLOGIES

The Mistakes That Made Us

The Mistakes That Made Us

select­ed by Irene Lath­am and Charles Waters
illus­trat­ed by Mer­cè López
Car­ol­rho­da Books, 2024

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Confessions from Twenty Poets

This engross­ing poet­ry anthol­o­gy explores mak­ing mis­takes and learn­ing from them. Twen­ty brave poets:

  • Lin­da Sue Park
  • Mar­gari­ta Engle
  • Allan Wolf
  • David Elliott
  • Matt For­rest Esenwine
  • Lacre­sha Berry
  • George Ella Lyon
  • Jaime Adoff
  • Vikram Madan
  • Kim Rogers
  • Dou­glas Florian
  • Tabatha Yeatts
  • Jorge Argue­ta
  • Jane Yolen
  • Charles Waters
  • JaNay Brown-Wood
  • Irene Lath­am
  • April Hal­prin Wayland
  • Dar­ren Sardelli
  • Nao­mi Shi­hab Nye

They share real-life mis­takes they made as young peo­ple … and what hap­pened next. Edit­ed by Irene Lath­am and Charles Waters, with bril­liant­ly evoca­tive illus­tra­tions by Mer­cè López, this is a book for all who are grow­ing and dis­cov­er­ing and still fig­ur­ing out who we are. (Which is to say … all of us!)

Awards & Recognition

  • ALA Notable Children’s Books in the Lan­guage Arts 2025, Winner
  • Bank Street Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion’s Best Chil­dren’s Books of the Year 2025, Winner
  • CYBILS Award 2024, Nominee
  • Key­stone to Read­ing Ele­men­tary Book Award 2025, Nominee
  • NCTE Notable Poet­ry Books and Verse Nov­els 2024, Winner

Resources

Reviews

  “The strength of this col­lec­tion comes from the authors admit­ting their mis­takes and going on to explain the val­ue of the result­ing learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. A gen­tle reminder of the step­ping stones mak­ing up the path to growth, dis­cov­ery, and cre­ativ­i­ty.” (Book­list, starred review)

  “Dynam­ic mixed-media art­work from López (Sylvie and the Wolf) offers ener­getic visu­al sup­port for each poem in an anthol­o­gy packed with a broad spec­trum of human emo­tion and expe­ri­ence.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review)

“The col­lec­tion is an excel­lent resource for teach­ing self-accep­tance and dis­cussing mis­takes or per­fec­tion­ism. ” (Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture)

“An engag­ing, emo­tion­al­ly hon­est col­lec­tion of poet­ry that offers chil­dren a com­fort­ing glimpse of adults and their imper­fec­tions … This acces­si­ble, well-tuned col­lec­tion of poet­ry will reas­sure and delight young read­ers in equal mea­sure.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“Com­fort­ing reminders that nobody’s per­fect, infused with lessons large and small.” (Kirkus Reviews)