Cool Teacher Update

In our quest to list 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature, we are up to 84. Check the sidebar for the teachers who've been nominated so far and wrack your brains for any we've missed!

Ten Poems to Last A Lifetime

I love Roger Housden's book TEN POEMS TO LAST A LIFETIME. I like the whole idea of it. In the introduction, he writes, "What is is about honey and bees that engages a beekeeper in his work for a lifetime? Or chimpanzees---Why does the primatologist Jane Goodall spend her working life alone in Africa watching and talking to them? What does a Shakespeare scholar find so fascinating about all those plays, which most of us are glad to be done with at the end of high school? And why do some people return to a few favorite poems over and over again, down through the years, when there are so many other books and anthologies out there just waiting to be digested and absorbed? .... It must be an unending source of discovery, of reflection, solace and insight; of pleasure; and also of warmth and nourishment, in athe way a fire can warm hands, and bread can fill the stomach." I am not one to read poetry anthologies from front to back but I love to find a poem that changes me. That is why I love this book and the concept of it--poems that you can go to over and over and over. Roger Housden mentions later in the introduction that everyone will have his/her own list of poems for a lifetime. I may start my own collection. Wouldn't it be fun for kids to do this? I'd love to see an anthology like this for kids. If you want to think about poems that would make a list of a kid version of an idea like this, we will be happy to post the list--poems that provide kids with some way to make sense of the world, that they could go to over and over. Comment away!

Art Teacher Suspended for Museum Trip?

Did anyone else see this article about a Texas teacher who has been suspended because her students saw nude art on an approved museum field trip?

Breaking News For Frost Fans

A previously unpublished poem by Robert Frost has been found! The poem, entitled "War Thoughts At Home" was found handwritten in the cover of a book, and will be published in Virginia Quarterly Review this week.

Kimberly Willis Holt

Kimberly Willis Holt was at our favorite children's bookstore--Cover to Cover--last Saturday. I have heard her speak before and I always love what she has to say. She was there talking about her new book PART OF ME: STORIES OF A LOUISIANA FAMILY which I just finished and loved! I am a huge fan of Holt's so I would be happy to see this one win the Newbery too. It is pretty new so we'll see if it makes any of the Mock Newbery lists. The book is another one of her stories with characters who stay with you. Actually, it is about 4 generations of a family. The fun thing for all of you teachers and librarians out there is the thread of books and reading throughout the book. The main character was a bookmobile driver which brought back great memories of my childhood bookmobile days. This book is really a tribute to books, reading, readers and family. I loved it!

Poetry Friday for the Changing Seasons

I found this poem for Jody Scott once, long ago. Her sticky note of thanks is still in the book by the poem. I love rediscovering that note and being flooded with memories of her.

The poem is RELUCTANCE, by Robert Frost.

My favorite stanza:

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.


The last stanza:

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?


The whole poem

NEW BABYMOUSE BOOK!

I just picked up a copy of BABYMOUSE: ROCK STAR today. I am very excited that this new addition to the series is out. I plan to read it tonight. Since so many people put BABYMOUSE: BEACH BABE on their Top 5 List for Mother Reader, I am anxious to check it out. It looks like it is going to be another good one:-)

Banned Books Week

Franki sent me a link from Outside of a Cat about Banned Books week...

...there it was, number 98 on the list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000: THE HEADLESS CUPID by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. The memories came flooding back...new teacher, just out of OSU with an MA in Children's Literature; parents loud and threatening and defiant; questioning myself, my judgement, my professionalism; feeling of support when my principal read the book and defended it and me when we met with the parents...and my astonishment when I learned, at that meeting with the parents, that THEY HADN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK! We cooked up some activities for the kid to do in another book out in the hall while the class (or the group...that part's fuzzy) worked on THE HEADLESS CUPID, but his parents wound up reading the book (finally) and realized it wasn't so bad, and they let the kid finish the book on his own because he wanted to find out how the story ended.

Gigantic nothing-burger with a side of ignorance. Left me with a mild case of professional indigestion, but no permanent aversion to books that fringe cases might not approve of.

Reading First News

I don't know if any of you have seen the report done on Reading First. But here is the link to the New York Times article about it this weekend. I think scripted programs for teachers are getting out of control and that we need to work to make REAL books the anchor for reading instruction. Hopefully, more money will be given to book based reading instruction in the near future.
An interesting read.

Poetry Saturday

School has taken over my life, so this poem has particular resonance:

ONCE AGAIN I FAIL TO READ AN IMPORTANT NOVEL
by George Bilgere

Instead we sit together by the fountain,
the important novel and I.

We are having coffee together
in that quiet first hour of the morning,
respecting each other's silences
in the shadow of an important old building
in this small but significant European city.

All the characters can relax.
I'm giving them the day off.

(click here for the rest of the poem)



And here are a few haiku my 5th graders wrote about favorite read-alouds from last year:

THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo

Despereaux is small
A mouse the size of a bug
A hero to all


Despereaux is a
mouse that gets his tail cut off
by a falling knife.


Shining warrior
he goes to save a princess
Name is Despereaux.



THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE by Kate DiCamillo

Edward Tulane lost
his beloved pocket watch,
a cherished item.


Edward Tulane was
a rich rabbit without love.
People, though, found it.