Poetry Friday -- The Halloween Tree

 "Always the same but different, eh? every age, every time. Day was always over. Night was always coming. And weren't you always afraid, Apeman there? or you, Mummy, that the sun will never rise again?"

"Yesss," more of them whispered.

And they looked up through the levels of the great house and saw every age, every story and all the men in history staring round about as the sun rose and set. Apemen trembled. Egyptians cried laments. Greeks and Romans paraded their dead. Summer fell dead. Winter put it in the grave. A billion voices wept...Then, with cries of delight, ten thousand times a million men welcomed back bright summer suns which rose to burn each window with fire!

"Do you see lads? Think! People vanished forever. They died, oh Lord, they died! but came back in dreams. Those dreams were called Ghosts, and frightened men in every age..."

"Night and day. Summer and winter, boys. Seedtime and harvest. Life and death. That's what Halloween is, all rolled up in one. Noon and midnight. Being born, boys. Rolling over, playing dead like dogs, lads. And getting up again, barking, racing through thousands of years of death each day and each night Halloween, boys, every night, every single night dark and fearful until at last you made it and hid in cities and towns and had some rest and could get your breath.

"And you began to live longer and have more time, and space out the deaths and put away fear, and at last have only special days in each year when you thought of night and dawn and spring and autumn and being born and being dead.

"And it all adds up. Four thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, this year, one place or another, but the celebrations all the same -- "

"The Feast of Samhain --"
"The Time of the Dead Ones -- "
"All Souls'. All Saints'."
"The Day of the Dead."
"El Dia De Muerte."
"All Hallows'."
"Halloween."

The boys sent their frail voices up, up through the levels of time, from al the countries, and all the ages, naming the holidays which were the same.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Trick or Treat!

This prose poem is from near the end of THE HALLOWEEN TREE by Ray Bradbury. The whole book is one long love song to Halloween -- a fantastic historical romp through times and ages, led by Mr. Moundshroud himself, and exploring what this time of death has meant and still means today.

Our beggars are out tonight, disguised in all manner of classic and modern costumes, braving the chill and the early dark, crunching through the dead leaves on the sidewalk, shouting at strangers, and receiving candy in their bags and baskets and buckets as the tradition of the celebration of death lives on.

Linda has the Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance.

Ghosts

Ghosts
by Sonia Goldie
illustrated by Marc Boutavant
Enchanted Lion Books, November 26, 2013
review copy provided by the publisher

This book holds explanations for all of those unexplained happenings in life -- GHOSTS! The ghosts of the chimney, TV, behind-the-curtains, and garden, along with the more ordinary ghosts of the attic, basement, night...and MORE!

Here are a few excerpts to give you the feel of this book:

The Ghost of the Kitchen

SQUAFUMPF...The door of the 

refrigerator is pulled open.

PLOP! A package falls

to the floor. Who's that

moving around in the kitchen?

It's a gluttonous ghost that devours

anything and everything

that's white. Sugar: YUM!

Milk: SLURP!

.
.
.


Don't you love the sound of the refrigerator door? So perfect!


The Ghost of Gray Days

It's cold and damp and rainy. It's gray.
Dull gray. Neither black, nor white, but
gray: gray skies, gray clouds, gray air,
even gray wind. Weak, tired, down in the
dumps, and grumpy -- this is what the ghost
of gray days is like.
.
.
.



This is a fun book with lots to look at and and small caption-y text. It will be released too late for Halloween this year, but (at least according to the book) ghosts are everywhere all year long...if only we pay close enough attention!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all of the ghosts and goblins and trick-or-treaters in your world!

Poetry Friday -- Halloween Night

Halloween Night
by Marjorie Dennis Murray
illustrated by Brandon Dorman
Greenwillow Books, 2013
review copy provided by the publisher

I have a big collection of Night Before Christmas variants. What great fun it is to have one that is set on Halloween night!

It begins,

"Twas Halloween night, and all through the house
Every creature was stirring, including the mouse.

The walls were aflutter with little brown bats,
While hordes of black spiders crept out of the cracks.

By the fire in the kitchen, the witch stirred her brew;
To make it more smelly, she threw in a shoe."

There are zombies, mummies, green creepies, ghosts, and ogres all making preparations for the trick-or-treaters. When the costumed children show up, there's a moment when the whole book stands still, and the reader knows it could tip either way -- the kids come in...or the kids run away.

You'll have to read it to find out how it ends, but you'll want to read this one aloud in a darkened room with a flashlight at your chin.

Happy Halloween!



Irene Latham has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Live Your Poem... where she's celebrating her 1,000th post! Congratulations, Irene!

Parody

Frankenstein: A Monstrous Parody
by Ludworst Bemonster (Rick Walton, illus. by Nathan Hale)
Feiwel and Friends Fiends, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Yesterday, I read aloud Mo Willems' Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs: As Retold by Mo Willemsand we talked about parody -- taking a well-known book or music video and redoing it in a new (and usually funny) way. One canny student asked, "Is that legal?" Knowing how we drill the evils of plagiarism, I can understand why she asked.

I think it will be easier for all of the students to understand just how parody works when I share The original Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans, followed by Frankenstein by Ludworst Bemonster.

(In fact, I had to buy Madeline so that I could fully appreciate the humor in Frankenstein. Somehow, I missed this childhood classic, either as a child or up until this point in my adulthood. Shameful!)

Reading both books in the same sitting will allow my students to see that the author of Frankenstein does not copy any of the exact words of Madeline. What makes the book so funny is the way the illustrator imitates the style of the illustrations (right down to the fake Caledecott Honor/CaldeNOT Horror medal on the cover), and the way the author imitates the rhythm, rhyme and basic plot line of the story. It is parody rather than plagiarism because the author made something entirely new -- he did not copy the work of the original. The author of Frankenstein depends on the reader knowing Madeline in order to really "get" the humor in his book.

In Frankenstein, "In a creepy old castle/all covered with spines,/lived twelve ugly monsters in two crooked lines" who are wrangled through the town at midnight, scaring folks, by Miss Devel. Miss Devel is awakened one night, whispering, "Something is not right," and when she checks in on the little monsters, she finds that Frankenstein has lost his head. Off he goes to the hospital, and when he wakes up, he finds he has a new head and two new screws in his neck. (Now you know where those screws came from!)

Madeline and Frankenstein -- a pair of books not to be missed this Halloween season!

Maybelle and the Haunted Cupcake

Maybelle and the Haunted Cupcake
by Katie Speck
illustrated by Paul Rátz de Tagyos
Henry Holt, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Ever since I fell in love with Archy and Mehitabel in high school, I have been a sucker for cockroaches in literature. I even kept Madagascar Hissing Roaches as classroom pets for a lot of years.

So of course, I love Maybelle the Cockroach! Maybelle has a friend who is a flea, and in this book, Bernice, a picnic ant with a bad head cold that prevents her from smelling her way home shows up. Bernice is used to serving her Queen, and Maybelle thinks it sounds great to be served. But she soon learns to be careful what you wish for. Bernice causes more problems than she's worth, but she does convince Mr. and Mrs. Peabody that Mrs. Peabody's mini cupcakes are haunted.

This is an entertaining 58-page easy reader with two other books in the series. I'm thinking Maybelle will be popular as a quick read in my classroom!

Dark Humor for Halloween

Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs
by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen
illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins
Charlesbridge, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Laughing about death is not everybody's cup of tea, so when this book made its appearance in my 5th grade classroom, I made sure that readers were forewarned. The pictures are gruesome and the animals in the book meet untimely and horrible deaths...but at the same time, to the right reader (mostly boys, to be honest), this is a very funny book.

Here are a couple of examples that have been favorites in my classroom:

THE LAST OF THE STAGGERING STAG

Win some.
Lose some.
Venison.


BARRACUDA'S BITE-SIZE DEMISE

My teeth were vicious;
my bite was hateful.
A great white met me --
the date was fateful.
The shark was hungry,
and I was baitful.


CHICKEN CROSSES OVER

She never found the answer
to the age-old question,
Why did the chicken cross the ro---?

BOO!

Just Say Boo!
by Susan Hood
illustrated by Jed Henry
HarperCollins, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Halloween will be here before we know it! (If I say BOO loud enough, do you think I can scare it back a week or two?)

In this sweetly illustrated rhyming book for the younger set, three kids face all their fears and troubles while trick-or-treating by remembering to say, "BOO!" They also remember to say "TRICK OR TREAT!" and "Thank you." In the end, they find enough brave to scare the grownups, and to rescue the spider that's scaring Mom. When the littlest one cries, they teach him to say, "BOO!"

Two in Time for Halloween

Never Kick a Ghost: And Other Silly Chillers
by Judy Sierra
illustrated by Pascale Constantin
Harper, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Three short stories, a hand-clapping rhyme and a trio of funny gravestone epitaphs make this a fun book for beginning readers. Of note is the last page -- "Where The Stories Came From." It's never too early for readers to learn that stories might have traceable sources. Judy Sierra has a PhD in folklore, so it probably never occurred to her NOT to include the sources for these stories/rhymes!

 Zombie in Love
by Kelly DiPucchio
illustrated by Scott Campbell
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Mortimer the Zombie is doing his best to attract a sweetheart for the Cupid's Ball. Somehow, nothing he tries is very successful. (Could be his rotting face and his falling-apart body...) Optimistically, he puts an ad in the paper for a date and shows up at the ball. Just when Mortimer is about to give up, a drop-dead gorgeous girl shows up. Yes, that kind of drop-dead.

A very punny book that I can't wait to share with the Zombie-obsessed student in my class!

Poetry Friday -- Review

Beastly Rhymes to Read After Dark
by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Brian Biggs
Alfred A. Knopf, 2008
review copy provided by the publisher

(the cover of my copy looks nothing like this)



This is a fun-sized volume (about 5" x 7") of poems perfect for the Halloween season. The illustrations are bold and colorful, and the rhymes just beg to be read aloud.

Here are some quick excerpts from a few of the poems:

The Lavatory Crocodile
"...She settled in the loathsome pool
Beneath the bathroom of your school.
When next you find you have to go,
Look first, and wave, and say 'Hello!'... "

Lovely Giant Squid
"...You can't have friends and eat them, too."

Who is Haunting the Zoo
"Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Who is haunting the zoo?
There's a phantom flamingo,
A windigo dingo,
An elephant skeleton, too..."

Leopard Chefs
"My next-door neighbor, Hilda Hitchen,
Kept two leopards in her kitchen
Who, when Hilda wasn't looking,
Taught themselves the art of cooking..."
(you might guess, it doesn't bode well for Hilda!)

Parasite Lost
(the title's enough on this one -- it's the best/grossest poem in the book so you'll have to read it yourself!)

Never Bully a Bug
"...Young William never realized
The tiny mites he victimized
Had cousins that were giant-sized..."

This week's roundup is at author amok.

Poetry Friday -- Halloween ABC

Halloween ABC
by Eve Merriam
Illustrated by Lane Smith
Copyright 1987


I'm feeling old. (It doesn't take much these days.) Eve Merriam's book of 26 Halloween poems has been one of my all-time favorite holiday books since...this is where the problem lies...since close to the beginning of my teaching career. Yeah. That long. And when I went to Powell's to get an image and a link, it wasn't there. Because it's out of print.

Come to find out, I missed the release of the updated version in 2002:







I doubt I would have bought it because, frankly, it doesn't look as spooky as the original book. I really liked Lane Smith's dark, foreboding illustrations. It appears from the reviews that the poems are the same in both books, only the illustrations have been updated. And the poems are classic Eve Merriam. If she chooses some predictable Halloween subjects for some of the letters, she writes a surprising poem. Every poem is completely unique -- there is no formula for the poems that make them repetitious and boring. The poem for Apple begins,

Apple,
sweet apple,
what do you hide?
Wormy and
squirmy,
rotten inside.

(You can see the whole poem for Apple here.)

This poem is a good example of the way the whole book twists and turns your expectations for what each poem might be about, or what word she might choose for each letter of the alphabet.

Grab this book (if you can find it), turn the lights off and light a flickering candle, get out your spookiest voice, and have a great read aloud! Happy Halloween!

*****

Today's roundup is at Literary Safari, a new blog for me. Look around their blog a bit before you click out to the poems today. They've got some great stuff over there!