Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics! - Perfect Picture Book Friday #PPBF

Maria Marshall
3 minutes ago
4 min read

Though noted for kids 9-12, I think some 6-8 year-olds will also enjoy the engaging comic illustrations and many of the poems. And younger elementary teachers could also use it in their poetry units. This is an ingenious book for anyone who loves poetry, theatre, comics, and a wicked sense of humor. A stunning poetic ode to the theatre and all of its various features.

Book cover - three actors stand on stage, in the spotlight, facing the audience, as two crew members wait either side in the wings.

Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics!

Author: Renée M. LaTulippe

Illustrator: Chuck Gonzales

Publisher: Charlesbridge (October 28, 2025)

Age: 9-12

Themes:

Poetry, theater, musical performance, comics, graphic novel.

Synopsis:

A clever kids’ graphic novel featuring a unique collection of theater-inspired poems, told in 3 acts that chronicle a musical, from auditions to opening night!

Young thespian fans of Theater Camp and Better Nate Than Ever will cherish this love letter to theater and theater production. Enjoy the show!

An appealing combination of fun comic illustrations and verse, Limelight is a collection in 3 acts and takes place during the mounting of a middle-school musical theater production. From auditions to rehearsals to the drama of opening night, this genre busting, poetry graphic novel gives voice to all things theater.

Script's Tips

Dear actors, advice:

be perfect, precise—

say what the playwright wrote!

Throw in some spice,

some fire and ice,

but please, don’t overemote.

Personification of the script, the rehearsal piano, the dressing room mirror and more, these fresh and funny poems prove that all the world's indeed a stage in this unprecedented middle-grade graphic novel.

Back matter includes information on poetic forms and theater terms to further enhance the reading.

Opening Lines:

Theater's Welcome

Doors swing open. Step inside

where dreams and fantasies reside.

Open hearts and minds up wide.

Let inspiration be your guide.

Observe your world, magnified.

What I LOVED about this book:

I adore the format! Set within the framework of a musical performance, the stunning and funny graphic comics play with the poems to explore the emotions of the actors, the physical setting of the theatre, and elements of a musical itself. Broken into an overarching structure of an overture, three acts, and a curtain call, the poems are arranged in wonderful bite-sized pieces so they can be read when evaluating a particular aspect of a theatre production, as individual poems, or all the way through. In addition to the inclusion of the "poetic forms" in the "backstage" portion [back matter], which offers teachers and readers an opportunity to explore specific 'types' of poems, each "starring poem" is also repeated, on color-coded, marque lit pages, as strictly text.

Internal spread - on the left, a colorful table of contents, with titles poems listed. On the right,
back matter list of the of the titles and forms of each poem.

Text © Renée M. LaTulippe, 2025. Image © Chuck Gonzales, 2025.

I'm in awe of Renée M. LaTulippe's amazing ability with these twenty-three poems to effortlessly explore an actor's experience in a theatre, from audition to applause, as well as the angst of a script, the appreciation of the practice piano, or a whisper from the lights. Ingeniously combined with the illustrations they make reading poetry fun. Adding them to the back matter, in their traditional forms, offers a master class on rhyme, rhythm, and meter of some well-known and more unusual types of poems.

Internal spread - on the left, five spot illustrations of a script, with arms, legs, and a face, reacting to the actors rehearsal. On the right, the script, wiping eyes with a tissue, as it imagines bad reviews.

I’ll wait backstage,

your guru, your sage—

then cringe in disbelief.

If you’d only engage

with the words on the page,

you’d spare me a world of grief!

I also love Chuck Gonzales' shifts of color. The introduction is bold and colorful - before the lights go down. When he masterfully shifts to a limited palette of blue, black, and white, carrying the story from the audition to the stage rehearsal, where he playfully adds yellow. Then he dramatically shifts back to fully colored illustrations for the audience's arrival and the performance. His inclusion of an orange tabby cat adds an additional fun touch of humor and whimsy to the action within the theater.

Internal spread - on the left, six actors strike poses in front of a "90's" backdrop. On the right, the cat peaks around the scenery and strikes a similar to the front actor.

Underlying these wonderful mask poems, which explore what and who is required to bring a production to opening night through the "eyes" of the cast and anthropomorphized parts of the theatre itself (scenery, costumes, and even the marquee), is a musical spanning across decades from the 1960's to the 1990's. This fun setting of a musical revue gave Chuck Gonzales the opportunity to showcase a wide range of period clothing, shoes, and hairstyles throughout his lively illustrations.

A fun glossary of theater terms and a final cameo of the theater cat. This is a terrific tour through the creation of a theatre revue of four decades and a loving ode to poetry and the theatre. It's a book readers of many ages will enjoy and cherish.

Resources:

make your own journal to record poetry you've read or written, illustrations, or favorite music or musicals (or other theatre performances).
pick one of the poems and write your own mask poem of something in your classroom, room, piece of sports equipment, art supply, or anything else important to you in that same form.

using the Lights poem as your guide, create your own "Concrete poem. Formatted in the shape of the topic." Look back at the illustration of Lights. How would you enhance or explain your poem with an illustration.

If you missed my interview with Renée M. LaTulippe and Chuck Gonzales on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series of blog posts by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.