#PoemPairs

 

Hair Twins

by Raakhee Mirchandani

illustrated by Holly Hatam

Little, Brown and Company, 2021

review copy provided by the publisher (thanks!)

FIRST THE PICTURE BOOK

From the author's note:

"This story is a window into my family and our tradition, one that started over five hundred years ago in Punjab and that we are proud to maintain and make our own here in America."

This is also a story about love -- the love of a father and daughter that centers around hair and culture, ancient traditions and insider jokes ("hair cheers" and "hip cheers"). For readers looking in through the window of this story, there is information (coconut oil smoothed in for untangling) and vocabulary (papa's joora/bun, patka/bun covering, and turban). Woven throughout the story is joy, shared at the end with friends in the park.

AND NOW THE POEMPAIR

Pádraig Ó Tuama unpacked the poem "Coconut Oil" by Roshni Goyate on Poetry Unbound last week, and while it's not for children, the poem and his commentary are a perfect pairing for adult readers, especially those with "mainstream" (read white person) hair who will share Hair Twins with children and who need to continue to learn and understand how hair can be the source of racism and microaggressions.

For those who want to dig in deeper into the colonialism of beauty, check out this Code Switch podcast, or this PBS Newshour piece on "How hair discrimination impacts Black Americans in their personal lives and the workplace."

 

#PoetryFriday #PoemsforMaryLee #MarvelousMaryLee

Join us in celebrating Mary Lee's Retirement! 

It's a Poetry Friday Takeover in Honor of #MarvelousMaryLee

Join in the fun with #PoemsForMaryLee!!

We love you Mary Lee!

I retired from Dublin City Schools last May and for the 33 years I was a teacher there, Mary Lee was too!  I can’t remember the exact moment we met but I know that it had to be some literacy committee or district book club that brought us together for the first time.  Over the years we never taught in the same building but we taught and grew and wrote and learned together throughout our careers. How lucky am I?  Mary Lee has been a gift to all of us who have learned alongside her as teachers, colleagues and friends.  Such an incredible career she’s had! Today, let’s celebrate #MarvelousMaryLee with #PoemsForMaryLee as she goes into her last week of teaching before retirement!

 

Mary Lee is retiring
And today we want to celebrate her
Retirement with a Poetry Friday Takeover!
(You know I love you if I attempt writing poetry for you.)

Let the fun begin!

Everyone join in sharing
Everything we love about Mary Lee!

 

I have been lucky for

So so long learning from and with Mary Lee!

 

Really, who gets to have a whole career with someone
Equally passionate about children, literacy and learning
Teaching together, but not in the same school, all these years

Is such a gift

Reaching so many students and supporting so many colleagues

Is what you’ve always done

Now it’s time to

Go on to enjoy your new adventures!

 

Poetry Friday -- Rita Dove via NCTE

 

From the NCTE Inbox Newsletter, a poetry event that is free and open to the public:

Join NCTE and the Library of Congress for A Conversation with Rita Dove

Join NCTE and the Library of Congress on Wednesday, February 24, at 4:00 p.m. ET for a conversation with former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove and NCTE member Melissa Alter Smith. Dove will discuss her own approach to writing, share and discuss specific poems, and dedicate ample time for Q&A. This event is free and open to the public. Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her third book of poetry, Thomas and Beulah, and was US Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995. She received the National Humanities Medal from President Clinton and the National Medal of Arts from President Obama—the only poet ever to receive both. Her many honors include a 2017 NAACP Image Award (for Collected Poems: 1974–2004), the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award. She is the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Her eleventh collection of poetry, Playlist for the Apocalypse, is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in the summer of 2021. Melissa Alter Smith is the creator of the #TeachLivingPoets hashtag and teachlivingpoets.com. She is a National Board Certified high school English teacher in Charlotte, NC. She is the 2017 District Teacher of the Year, an AP Reader, and an NCETA Executive Board member. Smith is also the coauthor, with Lindsay Illich, of Teach Living Poets. This text opens up the flourishing world of contemporary poetry to secondary teachers, giving advice on discovering new poets and reading contemporary poetry, as well as sharing sample lessons, writing prompts, and ways to become an engaged member of a professional learning community.

Let's Dance!

Let's Dance!
by Valerie Bolling
illustrated by Maine Diaz
Boyds Mills Press, March 2020
review copy provided by the publisher

With a cast of characters as diverse as the world of dance itself, and a rhyming text that just begs to get you up and moving, this book is going to be a favorite to read aloud or read alone. It's got my favorites -- fabulous endpapers (featuring rainbow colored dancing shoes and instruments), and back matter that gives more information about the dances: Flamenco from Spain, Kathak from India, Irish Stepdancing, the Long-Sleeve dance from China, the Kuku from West Africa, the Cha-Cha from Cuba, and the more familiar breakdancing, line dancing, disco and ballet.

"Tappity-tap

Fingers snap

Turn, twirl

Twist, swirl

Jiggity-jig

Zig-zag-zig"

Marilyn Singer's Feel the Beat: Dance Poems that Zing from Salsa to Swing would make a fabulous companion book. If you wanted to do a whole study of dance, you could use A Mighty Girl's list of picture books featuring dance.

Welcome to A Year of Reading, Valerie! Happy Book Birthday on March 3!

Valerie Bolling has been an educator for over 25 years and a writer since age 4. She is a graduate of Tufts University and Columbia University, Teachers College and currently works as an Instructional Coach with middle and high school teachers.

In addition to writing picture books, Valerie writes a Monthly Memo for teachers that she publishes on Twitter, and she has been published in The National Writing Project’s Quarterly and NESCBWI News. Recently, she had a poem accepted for publication by Cricket Media.

Valerie is a member of NCTE, SCBWI, the NESCBWI Equity and Inclusion Committee, the Authors Guild, the WNDB Mentorship Program, #12X12PB, 2020 Diverse Debuts, 20/20 Vision Picture Books, and a picture book critique group.

Valerie and her husband live in Connecticut and enjoy traveling, hiking, reading, going to the theater, and dancing.



Karen has the Poetry Friday roundup at her "Blog With the Shockingly Clever Title."

Poetry Friday -- Playing With Poetry

I picked up a few poetry toys at nErDCampMI last week.

With Instant Poetry, poetry forms meet multiple choice. You might want to try a nursery rhyme, a poem in the style of William Carlos Williams or Emily Dickinson, an ode, free verse, or more.

 

click image to enlarge

I've been wanting to try writing a sonnet, so I chose the Shakespearean Sonnet (bottom left in the collage above).

Before the Fates (b) cut in this checkout line
Let all who (a) brought some queso dip please stay
And find our (c) kids out back making green slime.
Neither king nor fool (a) returns their lunch tray.
Though time (b) cares not when chickens come to roost,
We hear the (a) band at least will take the stage.

Ok. I'm going to stop there. There are others that have options that string together with more sense. Let's try the Nursery Rhyme (top right).

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
(a) loved sarcastic commentary.

scribble-out poetry (aka blackout poetry) has a lot more poet-ential. This spiral-bound book has 45 bits of text ready for you to modify by scribbling-out the words you don't want with your permanent marker and leaving behind your poem. The text comes in different shapes (see top of collage) and amounts (see bottom of collage). Sources for the text bits include Frankenstein, The Count of Monte Cristo, War and Peace, and Pride and Prejudice, just to name a few. Each page is perforated and includes "to" and "from" lines and the attribution for the original text on the back so that you can gift your poetic creations!

click image to enlarge

I scribbled-out a bit from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (top right in the collage). This poem goes out to all the teachers who are enjoying their last weeks of living-and-learning-at-a-relaxing-pace.

Great 

fortune 

if you teach.

You contribute to the happiness of

life,

consume the

daily

pleasure of being

a good

instrument.

Scribbled-out by Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Carol, at Carol's Corner, is just one of those teachers for whom this poem was written! She's got the Poetry Friday roundup this week.

The MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Blog Tour is HERE!

In the Middle of the Night: Poems from a Wide-Awake House

by Laura Purdie Salas

illustrated by Angela Matteson

Wordsong, March 12, 2019

True story: my dolls sat on my closet shelf until just a few years ago when we had to empty mom's house to sell it. I tried to pack them away in a trunk several times, but it never lasted. Because, you see, my dolls were alive. They needed to be out in the open where they could breathe and see.

And, if Laura's new book of poems gets it right, maybe where they could hop off the shelf and take part in a "late-night talent show" while the house slept!

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Laura's imagination roams all through the house bringing to life a Kleenex parachute, an overdue book playing hide-and-seek, a very punny toilet, a basketball with a headache, and many more.

This is a book of poems that's sure to be a hit in our classroom for Poetry Friday presentations!

Check out other links on the blog tour for interviews, give-aways, a peek at the online resources for the book, a Padlet of contributor poems, and more!

Blog tour links:

Monday, 3/11 Mile High Reading
Tuesday, 3/12 Reflections on the Teche
Wednesday, 3/13 A Year of Reading
Thursday, 3/14 Check It Out
Friday, 3/15 Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
Sunday, 3/17 Great Kid Books
Monday, 3/18 Simply 7 Interview/Jena Benton blog
Tuesday, 3/19 My Juicy Little Universe
Wednesday, 3/20 Live Your Poem
Thursday, 3/21 Reading to the Core
Friday, 3/22 KidLit Frenzy       Beyond Literacy Link

GREAT MORNING! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud

GREAT MORNING! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud
by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong
PomeloBooks, 2018

Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong are force for good in the world of poetry for children. First they brought us the Poetry Friday Anthologies, then the Poetry Friday Power Books, and now GREAT MORNING.

Thanks to former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins, high schools have had Poetry 180 for years now. The time was right for poetry to come to the announcements in elementary schools. Vardell and Wong gathered 50+ poets for a total of 75 poems, one poem and topic for each of the 36 weeks of the school year, and connected poems for each of the weeks.

Let's break down the goodness of this book bit by bit using the title as our guide:

GREAT MORNING! -- Not just good...GREAT! And what will make it great? POETRY!!

Poems for School Leaders -- Another part of the GREAT in this book is the inclusion of school leaders in this literacy ritual. These school leaders are probably adult administrators, and probably usually men. How great would it be to have these men reading and enjoying poetry as a role model for the whole school?!? Of course, these school leaders might also be the safety and service team students who perform the video announcements ever day. The poems in this book are accessible for these young school leaders to read with expression and energy.

to Read Aloud -- How about it, School Leaders (especially administrators)? Here's an opportunity to read aloud to the entire student body at least once a week! It's a short text! It's fun! You know you want to up your game to from School Leader to Literacy Leader. This book will help you to achieve that goal.


If you are a teacher or a literacy coach, this would make a most awesome beginning of the year gift for your favorite School Leader. I can't wait to see the look on the face of mine when I present him with a copy of this book!


(Truth in advertising--I have a poem in this book, so that's the other exciting reason why I can't wait to share it with my School Leader!!)

Poetry Friday: One Topic Many Ways

I was so inspired by the 30 poems Amy wrote about Orion for her NPM18 project. I thought, "What a perfect way to end the year--with an engaging, choice-filled writing workshop!"

We're studying the similarities and differences between first- and second-hand accounts of immigrants, so I put the names of about 15 countries whose people have emigrated to the US in one bag, and, knowing that countries and people wouldn't be everyone's first choice, the names of about 15 animals that migrate into another bag. After the choosing (and liberal numbers of trades), we spent some time gathering information from the encyclopedias. (It's what you do when all of the computer carts are being used for MAP testing.)

Tuesday we started our digital collections in either Google Docs or Google Slides. On Tuesday, the anchor poems/strategies we looked at from Poems Are Teachers were write from first person, start with a question, and use repetition. On Wednesday, the anchors/strategies were write from facts, write from a photo, and ask What if?.

A new poetry form was invented on Tuesday. Harmony attempted a haiku, but counted words instead of syllables, so we named this form the Harmoniku. On Wednesday, Monta reversed the word count to 7-5-7, inventing the Montaiku.

Here is a selection of poems from my students:


Why We Left

When I asked my mother why we left,

she said, “ We couldn't worship freely.”

When I asked my father why we left, 

he said, “ It was the government’s will.”

When I asked my sister why we left, 

she said, “ For a chance.”

by Jawaher

Harmoniku

I was in WWII, FIGHT!!
I had a terrible leader, Adolf Hitler.
I am strong, proud, GERMANY! 

by Harmony

Storks

Why is this baby so heavy! I am flying at 60 mph because I’m late.
Why is this baby so heavy? I betcha her parents are worried.

Why is this baby so heavy! I’m almost there!
Why is this baby so heavy? I’m getting tired!
Why is this-AHHHHHHH!!!
BONK!
Why is this baby so----HEAVY!
At least the baby made it when I threw her!
Wait.
I ate that big bass for lunch
So that means…..
I’m the heavy one!

by Juan

Spain. Especially
Spain. Immigrants all over earth.
Some come, some leave. Why?

by Rayan

Montaiku--Bats

Millions a night fly in the sky
Hunting thousands in the dark
Hunting moths, mosquitoes every night then rest

by Monta

Jama has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Poetry Friday: Earth Verse

Earth Verse: Haiku from the Ground Up
by Sally M. Walker
illustrated by William Grill
Candlewick Press, 2018

In the author's blurb on the back jacket flap, we learn that Sally M. Walker majored in geology in college. How fun is it to show students that academic knowledge can be translated into poetry! This will be a go-to mentor text in my classroom for students who are having fun with nonfiction by writing in different formats.

The book features poems about Earth, minerals, rocks, fossils, earthquakes, volcanoes, atmospheric and surface water, glaciers, and groundwater. I didn't notice them at first, but there is a tiny icon at the bottom of the pages with poems that signals the topic and helps the reader see the connections between several pages of poems.

Here are a few favorites:

hotheaded mountain
loses its cool, spews ash cloud --
igneous tantrum

(volcano section)

a flat stone, skipping,
casts circles across the lake,
lassoing the fish

(atmospheric and surface water section)

hold fast, stalactite,
everlasting icicle,
stone bed for a bat

(groundwater section)



In keeping with the SALLY theme, this week's Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Sally Murphy!

Poetry Friday -- Nerdy Poetry and Novel in Verse Winners

I wrote the post, but I didn't pick the winners...READERS did! Congratulations to all of the winners, and the rest of you -- hold onto your credit card because you will want every single one of these for your classroom, school, or home library!

Heidi has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at my juicy little universe.

Happy Reading!! Happy Poetry!! Happy Poetry Friday!! Happy New Year!!

Poetry Friday -- String Theory

STRING THEORY
by Ronald Wallace

I have to believe a Beethoven
string quartet is not unlike
the elliptical music of gossip:
one violin excited
to pass its small story along
to the next violin and the next
until, finally, come full circle,
the whole conversation is changed.

(read the rest of the poem here)

Chelanne has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Books4Learning.

Poetry Friday Roundup is HERE! (Moo)

I'll be rounding up "old school" this week. 

Leave your links in the comments. 

I'll add them to the post as the day goes on.

 But first, Moo. 

Thank you, Kimberley Moran, 

for sharing the ARC of this novel in verse,

due to be published August 30, 2016, by HarperCollins. 

Somewhere,
there's a reader who will pick up this book
and know that's a Belted Galloway on the cover.

Somewhere,
there's a reader who has shown a heifer at the fair,
using a show stick to adjust the cow's stance.

Somewhere,
there's a reader who knows cow nostrils cow slobber cow plops.
Intimately.

These readers
will live inside the story of city-kids Reena and Luke
learning the small-town farm-kid Mainey life,
learning to get along with old Mrs. Falala,
learning to do things they never imagined they could do
or would do.

The rest of the readers
will watch jealously from the outside,
dreaming of freedom and fog and lobster boats.

All readers
will savor Creech's rich language
poetry
prose poems
words that skip and drip down the page
words that stretch and shout
words that
bellow
and
Moooooooooo.



HERE'S THE ROUNDUP!  (moo...)

Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge is pondering time and change, Amy Lowell and the Lowcountry of SC (plus three hokku).

Sally at Sally Murphy wrote three linked lunes...with a wink and a nod to her post from last week!

Emily Dickinson is helping Tara at A Teaching Life celebrate the recent rains.

Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme shares Carol Varsalona's Spring Seeds Gallery.

Keri at Keri Recommends has a vacation haiku from a getaway on the Little Red River in Arkansas.

Bridget's word play poem at Wee Words for Wee Ones will make you groan.

Dori at Dori Reads checks in from vacation in Montana with a glacier poem by a Kalispell student.

Laura at Laura Shovan has a mat-mom wrestling poem for us this week.

Diane at Random Noodling has bunny Haibun, Haiku and art this week!

At Kurious Kitty, Diane is celebrating Gustav Klimt's birthday with ekphrastic poetry written by Ferlinghetti.

Belted Galloways come in cinnamon, as well as dark chocolate. Image via Wikimedia.

At Beyond LiteracyLink, Carol V. shares Jone's Summer Poem Swap poem and encourages us to visit the Spring Seeds Gallery, where you can revisit the Kidlitosphere Progressive poem from last April.

Steven at Crackles of Speech has an original poem for us today about home building.

Linda M. at A Word in Edgewise also has a pair of original poems, inspired by a Teachers Write challenge.

Chelanne at Books4Learning reviews Outside the Box by Karma Wilson.

Myra at Gathering Books highlights Daniel Finds a Poem and tells about her Poetry Workshop for bloggers and families.

At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha has chosen a pair of poems with quiet Buddha wisdom.

Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales is contemplating stillness vs. music in an original poem.

Elaine at Wild Rose Reader has an original mask poem that speaks in the voice of everyone's "favorite" wildflower of summer!

Catherine at Reading to the Core shares an original poem that invites readers to slow down and take a closer look.

Heidi ponders the exact moment the new year arrives in her original poem at My Juicy Little Universe.

Carol W. at Carol's Corner spotlights a birder's journal that includes sketching and poetry.

Belted Galloway nostril close up via Pixaby.

Little Willow has some Hamilton for us at Bildungsroman!!

Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone shares a poem-in-progress about her recent family reunion.

Sylvia at Poetry for Children is celebrating TEN YEARS of blogging! As it turns out, this is her 811th post, and we all know which books to find shelved in the library with that number on their spines! How perfect is that? Well, then...811 cheers (or moos) for Sylvia!!

Julianne at To Read To Write To Be shares the connections that led her from a podcast to a beautiful blessing poem by Jane Hirshfield.

Linda B. at TeacherDance has some "wisdom of the ages" for these troubled times.

Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies} shares Sting lyrics to soothe our souls.

Margaret at Reflections on the Teche celebrates her mother-in-law's 85th birthday in an amazingly spectacular way!

What a treat! S. Evelyn at Notes Toward a Definition stumbled upon Patience Agbabi's revision of the General Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: So. Much Fun.

More Emily Dickinson from Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

At AliceNine, Alice shares a poem that's a "guiding beacon" for her.

Time to lie down in the shade. I think the roundup is almost finished.

No, wait! There's more! Irene at Live Your Poem is still up on Cloud Nine after being named the 2016 ILA-Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet! It's the 15th, Irene, not the 8th! Everybody be sure to go over and give Irene another round of congratulations!

Claudette at 100 Words a Day shares an original haibun to celebrate (?) her recent hip surgery. How about some cheer(s) for Claudette?!?

And Carlie at Twinkling Along slipped in under the wire (West Coast midnight) with a poem about falling in love.

Poetry Friday -- A Week of Poetry

This week I reviewed poetry books every day. Click on the day of the week to check out the reviews.

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

ALSO THURSDAY
The Children's Literature Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English announced the 2016 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts. Not all poetry, but of note to lovers of rich language.


For more poetry, check out the Poetry Friday roundup, hosted at Heidi's Juicy Little Universe this week.

Echo, Echo

Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths
by Marilyn Singer
illustrated by Josée Masse
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2016

Marilyn Singer is amazing. Not only did she invent the reverso poetry form, she just keeps getting better at it!

Her new collection tells familiar stories from mythology from two points of view -- Pandora’s box, King Midas and his golden touch, Perseus and Medusa, Pygmalion and Galatea, Icarus and Daedalus, Demeter and Persephone, and Echo and Narcissus. Readers will also learn about Eurydice and Orpheus, Melanion and Atalanta, Bellerophon and Pegasus, and more.

Here is the closing poem, for just a taste of the deliciousness of these poems:

Gods and Mortals

These myths
make sense of
the world.
We --
tellers and listeners alike --
enter these portals to
gods and mortals.
They can never again be closed,
once our imaginations are opened.

Once our imaginations are opened,
they can never again be closed.
Gods and mortals
enter these portals to
tellers and listeners alike.
We,
the world,
make sense of
these myths.

Two New Favorites

Every Day Birds
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
illustrated by Dylan Metrano
Orchard Books (Scholastic), 2016

This book-length poem pays tribute to birds we see every day -- the birds so common that we should, as Amy reminds us, pay more attention and learn more about them.

Gorgeously illustrated in a unique cut-paper technique (watch a fascinating time-lapse video of him making a puffin here), this book has a natural flow that will make it a joy to read over and over again.

Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmers' Market

by Irene Latham

illustrated by Mique Moriuchi

Wordsong, 2016

I love farmers' markets! This lively book of poems pays tribute to the vast variety of foods you can find at the farmers' market. The foods are described through many senses -- tongues "buzz with pleasure" tasting honey, peach's "baby-fuzz/cheek" tickles a nose, and (my favorite) the watermelon looks like a galaxy, with the spit seeds the shooting stars.

Two new favorites, both celebrating down-to-earth joys in life -- the rich diversity of nature around us, and the delicious variety of fresh foods available from farm to table.

Poetry Friday -- A Kind of Poetry

A Kind of Poetry

by Chi Lingyun

To discover a tree's memories is impossible.

To seek a pebble's experience 
is also impossible.
We spy on water's motion

but in the end we still can't touch its core.

The cloud has always been there, we exhaust our energy
to understand its will, yet there's no hope
it will reveal the sky's mysteries.

Poetry also has the will of clouds

with words like rain, to avoid madness

it creates more madness. Just as when love

is written down, it loses half of its sincerity.
When explained, there is only a layer of sticky
mist left. No one is quick or deft enough

to capture poetry for long. Everything perfect
contains a dark cave.

(the rest of the poem is here -- scroll down to the third poem)

My brother found this poem and shared it with me. I loved it in March, but I love it even more after poetry month. The line, "Just as when love/is written down, it loses half of its sincerity" seems to have been written just for me and my PO-EMotion collaborators! And I found so many dark caves last month...

For more Poetry Friday "spelunking," visit Michelle's roundup at Today's Little Ditty.

A December Filled With Poetry

Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole
by Bob Raczka
illustrated by Chuck Groenink
Carolrhoda Books, 2014

This is a very fun book.

You might have seen it reviewed (with a spotlight on the author) by Michelle at Today's Little Ditty. It's worth looking at again.

Bob Raczka Santa has written a haiku a day for the entire month of December, and they are collected here to give readers a peek into the secret life of Santa, beyond what we know of him in his workshop and sleigh. We get to know his love of nature, the way he and Mrs. Claus decorate for the season, and (through the illustrations) that he has a big orange cat that looks much like the one that lives in our house!

Buy a copy and make this a December tradition in your house! Maybe you could write companion haikus each day in December from the point of view of the elves or the reindeer!

Poems for Very Short People

Little Poems for Tiny Ears

by Lin Oliver

illustrated by Tomie dePaola

Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014

(In case you are wondering about today's post title, yesterday's post was "Very Short Poems." Go check it out. I'll wait.)

Welcome back!

Is it ever too soon for children to learn to love the rhythms, rhymes, and fun of poetry?

NO!!

Here's a great book for a baby shower gift. It will be as much fun for new parents to read over and over again as it will be for a new generation to listen to, look at, and slap their slobbery little hands all over the happy babies they see in Tomie dePaola's illustrations.

Very Short Poems

Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems
selected by Paul B. Janeczko
illustrated by Melissa Sweet
Candlewick Press, 2014

I don't know whether I love this collection more for the poetry or for the illustrations. Either way, it's a winner.

Beginning with Spring, each of the seasons is explored through eight or nine poems from a variety of both adult and children's poets.

Each poem is a snapshot, a glimpse, a moment. They are perfect for showing children the power of just a few words to describe or evoke or illuminate.

And did I mention that the illustrations are beyond lovely? They are classic Melissa Sweet. I wish I could frame every page.

This is a collection you will want, and a fabulous gift book. Share the love.

Check out Mary Ann's review at Great Kid Books.

Poetry and Imagination

Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems
by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian
illustrated by Jeremy Holmes
Schwartz & Wade, 2014

As I noted last Wednesday, J. Patrick Lewis' anthology title says it all: "Everything is a Poem." Last Thursday, we looked at science in poetry, Monday we looked at nature in poetry. Tuesday, the focus was on history in poetry, yesterday we took a look at biography in poetry. Today, let's have fun with imagination in poetry.

The subtitle of this book says it all: "Crazy Car Poems."

If that didn't get your attention, check out the co-authors -- J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian. Now you KNOW you're in for some fun, right?

If you're still not sure, here's a bit from the introduction poem, "Introduction:"

"...But someday our fantastic cars
Might look like cool dark chocolate bars,

Banana splits, hot dogs or fish --
Or any kind of ride you wish..."

This book is all kinds of imaginative fun. The plays on words are groan-worthy, and the illustrations are a blast.

Poem-Mobiles was reviewed by Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup (check out the picture of the Teddy-Go-Cars -- doesn't that make you want to use up some of the leftover Halloween candy making Snickermobiles?)

Becky has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Tapestry of Words.