My Week

Last weekend began with the 5th annual Ohio Casting for Recovery retreat, and ended with a blow-by from Hurricane Ike. Both events taught me big lessons.

In 2005 I attended the CFR retreat as a participant. For the past three years I've served on the retreat team as a planner/fundraiser throughout the year and as a fishing instructor at the retreat. I wrote about the 2006 retreat here.

The William Stafford poem that Jules shared for Poetry Friday this week (and all the other Staffords in the comments) helped to crystalize what the CFR weekend taught me this year. This year I heard myself saying to a participant things I need to remember and practice in my own life:

All we really have is this moment right now. We can't change what's behind us and we can't know what's ahead of us, so we need to focus on this moment and do our best with it, enjoy it to its fullest. (Live in the moment, Mary Lee. Pay close attention to Right Now.)

There are plenty of people in the world who will judge you based on your looks. The ones who matter are the ones who get to know you -- the ones who can see that you are so much more than your shell, who can see the beauty within you. (Don't judge, Mary Lee. Learn to look within for beauty. Be one of the ones who matter.)

When I got home from the retreat, new challenges and learnings awaited me. Ike's winds were revving up to 60-80 mph, construction barrels were rolling across the road creating a live-action obstacle course, branches were down (and still falling) everywhere I looked, roads were closed by fallen trees, and there were no working traffic lights.

I pulled into the driveway at 4:00 pm, just as we lost electricity. We didn't get our power back until 1:30 am on Thursday. Across the street from us, and in many other parts of the city, they still don't have power. Within walking distance of my house, there is still a street closed because of a fallen tree. There were schools in the city and around the area that were closed for four days this week. In our district, we were out two days (one building for three).

Here's what I learned from Ike:

I missed being connected to the Internet and email, but I can definitely survive without it. Hot showers are much more important in the big picture.

Electricity isolates us as much as it connects us. Without electricity, we spent much more with our neighbor, sharing lunch from a COSI we found nearby that was miraculously open, sharing pans and thermoses of hot water (we have a gas stove), and commiserating during the clean-up. I haven't talked to her since the power came back on.

If this much chaos was caused by half-power hurricane winds in a dry storm, I can now clearly imagine what a real hurricane is like. We had no rain (so no flooding and less damage because the trees were dry), and the weather cooled down to the 70's after the storm passed, leaving us with pleasant, rather than steamy, air. My heart goes out to anyone who has ever lived directly in a hurricane's path.

For one day, I lived in two worlds -- the one of chaos, deprivation and uncertainty at home, and the "normal" one at school. I now have a better appreciation for my students who navigate two worlds every day.

When you're focusing on where the next meal is coming from, it's hard to care about politics, the stock market, and the situation in Afghanistan.

It doesn't matter how many services and offers of help are available to those in need, when you are cut off from the "real world," you have no idea those services and offers even exist. We had a battery radio, but we could not find a single station that gave us any information (beyond school closings) that was of any assistance. We found it quite amusing when we got power to watch the news and see how much information about the storm and the recovery was available...if you had electricity to watch the news! CRAZY! WRONG!

And once again, I learned that all we really have is this moment right now. We can't change what's behind us and we can't know what's ahead of us, so we need to focus on this moment and do our best with it, enjoy it to its fullest.

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.

The Literacy Connection Annual Workshops

For those of you who attend the annual Literacy Connection workshops, you will be happy to know that THE LITERACY CONNECTION has a new website! And, the new workshops have been announced there and by mail. This year, Kelly Gallagher, author of Deeper Reading, Teaching Adolescent Writing and others.
He will be presenting to teachers in strategies for writing in grades 4-12. Kelly is a full time teacher and a great presenter. The session is on Saturday, October 11 and the cost is $50 (Lunch included. A great way to spend a Saturday if you teach grades 4-12. Registration forms and info are on the site.



Carl Anderson will be The Literacy Connection's April speaker. He will be speaking on the topic of Assessing Writers. For those of you who have attended the April workshop before, it is part of a year long study around an expert's work. We meet in October to talk about the year and then meet in study groups around the work. Then in April, the author of the book speaks and does demonstration teaching at a local school. I always learn a lot when I attend these. More details are on The Literacy Connection's website.

HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN edited by Nikki Giovanni

I have always been a huge fan of Nikki Giovanni. Her poetry books were some of the first I had in my classroom. Her newest book, HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN: A CELEBRATION OF POETRY WITH A BEAT may be my favorite yet. I just received a review copy and spent quit a bit of time with it. It is quite fun and packed with great poetry with a beat. The book is due out on October 1 and I imagine people will be scrambling to get copies as soon as they can.

These are the things I love about the books:

-The poetry has a beat and I love poetry with a beat. So much fun to read and play with.
-Some of my favorite poets have pieces in this collection--Eloise Greenfield, Nikki Grimes, Maya Angelou, Walter Dean Myers
-There is a GREAT CD that goes along with the book. 30 of the poems are included on the CD. Many are read by the poets. Others are read by performers.
-The illustrations are gorgeous. So many illustrators and looks that seem to match the poems. Each page stands alone as its own work of art.
-I love the variety of the poems, the illustrations, and the audio. There is something to hook everyone to the book.
-I love the size. It is a pretty big poetry book. One with lots packed in it. You know when you pick it up, that it is filled with beat and depth.
-Nikki Giovanni shares her vision for the book and the history and importance of hip-hop as the introduction. Such a reminder of how powerful words have been throughout history.

Love this book. I think it is a K-8 must-have for classrooms and libraries. Like I said it is packed and it may be (at first) intimidating to young readers. But, once they hear some of the audio, spend time with the illustrations, and experience some of the poetry, I think it will become a favorite.

Other reviews:
Nikki Giovanni shares her thoughts on the collection on this video.
Amy Bowlan of School Library Journal includes Giovanni's video clip in her review also.
Jennie at Biblio File
Becky at Becky's Book
Reviews

WILD BOARS COOK by Meg Rosoff and Sophie Blackall

I have been trying to catch up on "funny books". I don't always tend to read those books that are just plain fun. But with my new job as school librarian, I think it is very important that we laugh in the library. And that we laugh a lot. So, I have been on the lookout for funny books. My friend, Bill at Literate Lives has been a huge help with this. I think I am getting better at finding books that kids might find to be amusing.

As a classroom teacher, I looked for books to use as mentors for writing, books to use for comprehension minilesson, books that would meet the needs of different readers and writers in my classroom and books that I could use across the curriculum. We certainly read books for fun, but they weren't a priority for me when I was shopping. I just usually happened upon them. These days, I am trying to catch up on knowing more books like this.

I think one of the other librarians in the district shared this one in our last meeting and I just got my own copy. It is called WILD BOARS COOK and it is quite funny. The story is a sequel to the book MEET WILD BOARS which I haven't read yet--but I am anxious to do so sometime soon.

The 4 wild boars are great characters. It is fun that their names rhyme (Boris, Morris, Horace, and Dorris) but the way they spend their time is pretty fun too. They are not likable creatures but you find yourself loving them anyway. In this story, the boars are hungry so they make a magnificent pudding. It is amazing to me how much you get to know each character in such a short text. The book is pure fun but it is also filled with great writing, and a very satisfying ending. A great book all around.

Other reviews:
Publisher's Weekly
4IQREAD

An interview with Sophie Blackall at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD: The Fourth Book of Ember

I have LOVED the Ember series. I found CITY OF EMBER when it first came out--Karen at Cover to Cover recommended it and it became our year's first read aloud. It was one of the best first read-alouds ever. A perfect combination of plot, action, adventure and lots to talk/think about.

When PEOPLE OF SPARKS came out, I was ending the cycle with the class who had read CITY OF EMBER. The publisher was nice enough to send me an ARC so we finished off our year with that book as read aloud. The book caused lots of conversations and disagreements--so much for 5th graders to talk and think about.

I read THE PROPHET OF YONWOOD when it came out. I liked it but didn't love it like I had loved the others.

I picked up the fourth and final book--THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD--last week and have been staying awake a bit too long reading it the last few nights. It is a PERFECT ending to a great series. I think sequels and final books can be very disappointing but this one was far from either of those.

The fun in this book is that Lina and Doon return to the city of Ember. I must say, as a reader, it was like I was returning too. It was changed, but I remembered it. I remembered being there and I reentered the world of Ember just as Lina and Doon did. I am not sure how DuPrau accomplished this as a writer, but it works well. I won't tell the story here but this series is a great one for readers of science fiction. And this ending book is perfect--closure but surprises; characters we see grow and change, goodbyes and new hope.

If you have yet to read any of the books in this series, I would read CITY OF EMBER quickly--before the movie comes out in October. I think it will be a great movie--the trailer shows a bit of it. But I can't imagine the movie can even compare to the book.

Poetry Friday -- Found Poem

I keep this list of reminders on a sticky note at my desk.  Just for today, they seem like a poem.

PROCEED

We never

know what to expect.

We've never

seen it all.

In every interesting situation,

we never

really know 

what to do.

We should always

proceed with caution.

We should always

proceed.

The roundup this week is at Biblio File.

If Animals Kissed Good Night

If Animals Kissed Good Night
by Ann Whitford Paul
illustrated by David Walker
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008
review copy provided by the publisher



This is my new baby shower gift book.

Reading this book as the last read aloud of the night is bound to result in lots of snuggling and kissing. What a great way to end the day!

The book starts out, "If animals kissed like we kiss goodnight, Sloth and her cub in late afternoon's light would hang from a tree and start kissing sooo slooowwwww...the sky would turn pink and the sun sink down low." Peacocks kiss with a fan dance, snakes kiss like rope loosely wound, walrus calf and papa kiss with whiskery swishes, elephant give a kiss and then a shower, "and Sloth and her cub? Still...kissing good night." Land and water and forest and Arctic and human animals kiss their way through the rest of the book, and you can probably guess what Sloth and her cub are doing after the child is tucked in with all her stuffed animals around her!

Join Hands! The Ways We Celebrate Life

Join Hands! The Ways We Celebrate Life
by Pat Mora
with photographs by George Ancona
Charlesbridge, 2008
review copy provided by the publisher


A year ago, I had never heard of the Malaysian poetic form pantoum.

Then last year, Tricia (Miss Rumphius Effect) used the pantoum for one of her poetry stretches. She explained the form, wrote an original, and shared the pantoums her stretch participants wrote.

This August, Kelly Fineman explored the pantoum for Poetry Friday.

Jone shared an original pantoum in April, and then came back at the end of August to a poem she worked on for Elaine's (Wild Rose Reader) and Janet Wong's challenge to write a ring/blanket/drum poem and made it into a ring/blanket/drum pantoum!

And now Pat Mora and George Ancona have created a single-pantoum picture book! I declare it The Year of the Pantoum! The pantoum is the perfect form for Mora's poem. She explains, "A pantoum is a repeating form written in four-line stanzas. The second and fourth lines in one stanza become the first and third lines in the next stanza. In the last stanza, the second and fourth lines are almost the same as the frst and third lines of the first stanza. So, like a group of friends joining hands, the poem becomes a circle."

In her poem, friends sing and dance, strut and ballyhoo, plan a masquerade and a parade, take a chance and begin to dance, and join hands in a "happy hoopla way." A fun book and a great invitation to children to explore the pantoum.

Monsoon Afternoon

Monsoon Afternoon
by Kashmira Sheth
illustrated by Yoshiko Jaeggi
Peachtree Publishers, 2008
review copy provided by the publisher

The weather is changing, and the first fat raindrops of the monsoon are beginning to fall. No one but Dadaji has time to play with his grandson. Luckily, Dadaji remembers what fun he had as a child playing in the monsoon rains -- floating paper boats in the washtub, enjoying the smell and feel of the rain after a long dry season. Dadaji remembers swinging in the banyan tree, watching peacocks strut, and picking mangoes, and he shares these memories as he spends the afternoon with his grandson. He assures the little boy that he was once as young as he is, and, yes, someday the little boy will be a Dadaji, too.

In the author's notes at the end of the story, Sheth shares some of her memories of monsoon season from her childhood on the west coast of India.

Many of our students and their families have storm-related memories. In our beginning of the year writing workshops, we often ask students to write personal narratives. This book might prompt students to gather and write a collection of storm stories.

Kashmira Sheth's blog