Poetry Friday! 2 New Poetry Books

TODAY AT THE BLUEBIRD CAFE: A BRANCHFUL OF BIRDS

I love when a author publishes his/her first book for children and it is brilliant. Deborah Ruddell, author of THE BLUEBIRD CAFE has written a brilliant one. You can tell by the title how clever it is, can't you?


Today at the Bluebird Cafe

It's all-you-can-eat at the Bluebird Cafe,
a grasshopper-katydid-cricket buffet,
with berries and snails and a bluebottle fly,
a sip of the lake and a bite of the sky.


Isn't it the best?
The book is filled with lots of poems about different birds. The Cardinal, The Woodpecker, and more. The language is amazing ("She rides the sky like she owns the sun"). The humor is the best. Somehow the illustrator has managed to create soft,watercolors with a touch of whimsy.

The endpages are an added treat!



COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, and MARS: SPACE POEMS AND PAINTINGS BY DOUGLAS FLORIAN

This is a great nonfiction poetry book about space. The book is full of a variety of poems about the planets and other space topics (black hole, comet...) Some poems rhyme, some don't. But they all give interesting information about space. A fun way to learn new things and an interesting look at nonfiction poetry.

Here is the beginning of the poem called "the solar system:

Each planet orbits around the sun
(A somewhat circular path).
To calculate the time it takes
Requires lots of math.

The last pages of the book include "A Galactic Glossary" and a bibliography for further reading. This books is packed with information.