MotherReader

Another song as poetry, probably one you've heard on the radio. I love the harmonies of Mumford & Son, but especially in "I Will Wait." Enjoy.

Well, I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of dust
Which we've known
Will blow away with this new sun
But I'll kneel down,
Wait for now
And I'll kneel down,
Know my ground
And I will wait,
I will wait for you.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Semicolon..

I've mentioned this book before as being a perfect present for a child or a teacher gift for the classroom. In booktalking, I showcased the title as being a way to read a book in the smaller bits of poetry. I opened it up to show several of the stunning photographs, and read a few poems.

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar!
Complied by J. Patrick Lewis
National Geographic, 2012
If you are looking to dip into a book this summer, try a poetry collection. And if you are trying a poetry collection, don't miss this one. It combines the amazing photographs that National Geographic is famous for with poems about animals from known poets. There are serious poems and silly ones. Long and short... as little as the three lined haiku of the sandpiper: "Frantic sandpiper/ high tides erasing/ her footnotes." Here's one I particularly like:

About the Teeth of Sharks

The thing about shark teeth is - teeth,
One row above, one row beneath.
Now take a close look. Do you find
It has another row behind?
Still closer - here, I'll hold your hat:
Has it a thrid row behind that?
Now look in and.... Look out! Oh my,
I'll never know now! Well, goodbye.
- Jon Ciardi

Poetry Friday is hosted today at The Poem Farm.

Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems
by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Josee Masse
Dial 2013, review from library copy
This picture book of poetry has a clever twist. The poems can be read backwards or forwards. With different line breaks, punctuation, and intended inflection, the reversed poem becomes something altogether new. Having common fairy tales as the subjects makes it easy for the reader to jump right into the story told in the contrasting verses. For instance On With the Dance captures - so to speak - the twelve dancing princesses:

Sleep, soldier.
Do not
follow this eager pack of princesses.
Cloaked
by moonlight,
steal unseen from the castle,
sisters,
keeping secrets.
No
fathers need to know
why,
night after night,
these dancing slippers are always worn out.

Or from another perspective:

These dancing slippers are always worn out
night after night.
Why?
Fathers need to know.
No
keeping secrets,
sisters.
Steal unseen from the castle
by moonlight.
Cloaked,
follow this eager pack of princesses.
Do no
sleep, soldier.

See how differently it reads with the same words? Love these. The illustrations are wonderful too, often combining contrasting colors like blues and oranges. Great poetry for young readers.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Another in the songs as poetry series, but this one is also a TV show theme song. Do know which one? Check out the real poems with Poetry Friday, hosted today at A Year of Reading

Give me your hands
Show me the door
I cannot stand
To wait anymore
Somebody said
Be what you be
We can be old and cold and dead on the scene
But I love you more than words can say
I can't count the reasons I should stay

Give me some more
Time in a dream
Give me the hope
To run out of steam
Somebody said
It could be here
We could be roped up, tied up
Dead in a year
I can't count the reasons I should stay
One by one they all just fade away

Having my teen play queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream rekindled an interest I had in the fairer folk. Growing up, I was obsessed with Michael Hague’s illustrations of all sorts of fantastical creatures and recently came across a library book that I missed in my more practical parenting years. The Book of Fairy Poetry features a variety of poems from Shakespeare to Prelutsky paired with Hague’s lush illustrations. While there is plenty of spritely dancing, the darker side is well-represented with poems of goblin tricks and fairy revenge. It's a gorgeous collection for adults and children. With his long career of creating enchanted worlds his artist note states, “In a very real sense I have been working on this volume of fairy poetry all my life.”

For Poetry Friday - hosted today at Check It Out - here is Shakespeare's song for Titania's slumber:

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby;
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm.
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.

A Poem of Her Own:
Voices of American Women Yesterday and Today
edited by Catherine Clinton, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn
Harry Abrams Publishing, 2003
Following chronological order, this collection features poems of twenty-five women over the last three hundred years. There is a definite focus on modern poets with half of the poems from the last fifty years, but a good sampling overall. The poetry and illustration is pretty sophisticated, and would find the best audience in the middle to high school reader. Biographies of the poets are listed at the back of the book which "reveal not only individuals, but, together, comprise a particularly intriguing story of America, a story of courage in the face of hardship, a story which traces varieties of creative expression unfolding over three centuries.” (I liked that phrasing from the introduction too much to paraphrase it.)

Here's a poem for today:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave my one again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, - let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1923)

Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted today at my juicy little universe.

These past few weeks I've been working on two separate and important lists of books. Well, three if you count my 150 Ways to Give a Book. The first you know about as a blogger, the Cybils, where the picture book panelists will bring over two hundred nominations down to a shortlist of seven. Crazy. The other is for my actual job, where I am working on a selection of titles to promote during our summer reading program. These committees add a lot to my full plate, but I can't object when they introduce me to books like today's selection.

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar!
Complied by J. Patrick Lewis
National Geographic, 2012, review from library copy

Honestly, I could probably just make the cover photo larger and point you to Amazon's Look Inside feature and sell you on this book. The poems about animals vary in style from the quick silly musings of a purple cow to deeper contemplations about the loss of the buffalo. Every poet you would expect is in there. Yes, even her. But it's the photography - it's National Geographic, remember - that will bring in the readers and make this book a favorite. Absolutely stunning. In my time crunch, I had to share this title now as a perfect present for any child in your life, maybe with a promised trip to the zoo. (One way to give a book.) Or give it to a teacher as a gift that will be enjoyed personally and for the classroom. If I haven't sold you on this book, seriously, visit the Look Inside feature at Amazon and I dare you not to buy a copy on the spot.

With poetry books, I include a poem as an idea of the style. Here you don't really need a sample, but it's a tradition and it is Poetry Friday.

The Pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.

-Robert Frost

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Read, Write, Howl. Head over there for more poetic thoughts.

Thanks to all for your compliments, support, and promotion of my 150 Ways to Give a Book! It's a lot of work, but one of my favorite things to pull together. I hope it helps you find ideas and maybe makes your shopping a little easier.

Tucked somewhere in old, old papers from my school days, is a collection of poetry that I memorized for extra credit. Today it seems well, old-school, but while our education system seems to emphasize memorized facts, we've lost the art of memorization as knowledge, as an art. While I can't claim that can recite those poems of my youth, I value the skill set learning how to memorize. That the techniques of memorization so fully unlock the levels of a poem was one concept that presented itself in this book.

Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart
selected by Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Michael Emberly
Little, Brown 2012, reviewed from library copy

Divided into categories that range from easier to harder and to logical grouping of animals, food, time, feelings and more, this collection of poetry is meant to be savored. More than savored, memorized. The poems were selected with this goal in mind, and reflect a broad range of styles and subjects for maximum appeal. The diverse group of poets include Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson, Edward Lear, Nikki Giovanni, Gary Soto, Naomi Shihab Nye, Walter Dean Myers, A.A. Milne, Eloise Greenfield, Odgen Nash, and many more. The author contributes several poems and lays out the reasoning and approach for learning a poem by heart. Some of that here in the first poem:

A Poem for the Reader
...
You'll pick out your favorites
From those that you've read
And invite them to live in
The house in your head.
This house is called Memory,
Everyone knows,
And the more you put in it,
The larger it grows.
The more that you give it,
The more it will give,
And your poems will live with you
As long as you live.
- Mary Ann Hoberman

With poems short and long, silly and serious, concrete and surreal, she's brought together a collection that expands the idea of a "children's poetry book" to something that will be shared with an adult with equal interest. Emberly's illustrations are a perfect fit with this concept, with styles adaptable to lighter or serious verse, showing humor, sensitivity, and a gentle touch that complements the text. Wonderful book for a classroom - think teacher gift! - or to read at home.

For more poetry books and poems, Poetry Friday is hosted today at Think Kid, Think!

I was going to give three bunny books to read if you missed the Easter selection at your local library, but then I looked up such books in my own library's catalog and found over three hundred picture book titles. Clearly, you don't need my suggestions as you would be much better off planting yourself in front of any picture book shelf and pulling out books at random - though as a hint, you'd have an easy time in front of the Rick Walton, Rosemary Wells, or Beatrix Potter books.

Now is the first week of National Poetry Month and there is so much going on, much of it listed at KidLitosphere Celebration of Poetry Month. Since this is the Thursday Three, I'll share three sample sites to start you off.

1. Irene Latham introduces a fantastic new activity in the KidLitosphere Progressive Poem. Watch a poem grow day-by-day as it travels across the KidLitosphere. If you lose track of the process, you can check the schedule for the next participant.

2. Greg Pincus brings back 30 Poets/30 Days with previously unpublished poems by favorite children’s authors. Some great poetry happens here, so don't miss it!

3. Author Amok offers a series 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets with guest poets sharing their writing rituals. There will also be features on famous poets, writing prompts, and poetry.


It's coming to a close just as Poetry Month starts, but let me give a shout-out to Ed at Think Kid, Think! for leading us into the month with a spectacular Poetry Madness Tournament! Pitting poet against poet tournament style was certainly competitive, but it was at the same time a community building experience. And it was absolutely brilliant!

As we wrap up National Poetry Month, let’s talk about bringing more poetry into your child’s life.

1. Read It: Next time you’re at the library, take a turn into the poetry section. Most likely you’ll find it under Dewey’s famous decimal system at either 811 (for single author) or 808 (for collections). While poetry books may have been limited when we were growing up, the choices now are amazing. There are collections about cats, oceans, sports, friends, apologies, and world records. You’ll also find styles and forms just as varied, along with a broad illustrative range. It’s a new day in children’s poetry compared to what you might remember as a somewhat stale past. Take a chance and bring some home for your nightly reading time.

2. Write It: Inspired by the poems you read, try your hand at writing a few. Don’t worry about perfection or natural talent. Simply have fun with words. With your child, play with rhythm and rhyme to make up some silly poems. If they don’t really make sense, maybe they’ll make you laugh. I amused my three-year-old niece with a quick ditty about a little black dog that was running down the street, with a baseball cap on top of his head and sneakers on his feet. From there, we could have looked at the rhyming word family of “feet” (note: Learning Alert) or come up with a new story. (As it was, we turned into Applebees.) Another easy form to investigate is the haiku with its three line, 5-7-5 syllables format. It’s surprising how many lovely turns of phrase can be changed slightly to fit the form. Or:

Changed slightly to fit,
Many lovely turns of phrase
become the haiku.

And I didn’t even try there to get the original sentence to work. Okay, technically there is more to the haiku than syllables, but for fun think what could be done with your child’s observations about clouds, spiders, or crayons.

3. Find It: Once you start to look, you’ll find poetry all around. Song lyrics come through more clearly as poetry. (Well, some at least. I wouldn’t suggest the works of Lady Gaga as being rich in material, though “want to take a ride on your disco stick” may be one of the best phrases ever crafted.) Picture books can be poetic, even when they aren’t categorized as poetry. Phrases you hear on the playground or words you see at the store, fragments of lists or sentences of novels can spark your imagination. You could tuck those pieces away for a future poetry venture, or acknowledge them in the moment and let them go. But truly, allow yourself and your child to recognize the magical and musical quality of words, because that is poetry.

For National Poetry Month, I’ve covered poetry collections and picture books in my Thursday Three. Today I have a set of books where one poem is made into a picture book. Enjoy.

Me I Am!
by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Christine Davenier
I know, another Prelutsky book that seems different from the style that I attribute to him. I may need to give the man more credit. For this book, I love the way this poem expresses the uniqueness of each person and celebrates our individuality. It’s like a personal anthem. “I am the only ME I AM, who qualifies as me; no ME I AM has been before, and none will ever be.” The poem carried through the pages is lovely, but the artist, Christine Davenier, has taken it another step into a celebration of childhood. Each two-page spread is a story in itself, told in the pictures. Over two pages, we see a girl trying on a frilly dress, rejecting it, putting on play clothes, skating away, falling, and getting up again happy. There is another story for a little boy, and then another little girl, and then in the end they all come together. So much more is going on in this book than the words, and it’s all good.

All the World
by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee
The poetic text is simple — “Rock, stone, pebble, sand; body, shoulder arm, hand; A moat to dig a shell to keep, All the world is wide and deep.” The book takes a multicultural family through a day that focuses on their connection with each other, with friends and neighbors, and the world around them. There are beaches and parks, gardens and restaurants, the big outdoors and the cozy space of home. The sentiment is lovely and is made more so by the detailed illustrations and breathtaking panoramas. This title encourages repeat readings to expand on the stories contained in the pictures, and the beauty contained in the message.

The Moon
by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Tracey Campbell Pearson
Robert Stevenson’s poem — “The moon has a face like the clock in the hall; / She shines on thieves on the garden wall, / On streets and fields / and harbour quays” — is brought to life by illustrator Tracey Campbell Pearson. She turns this poem about the moon and the world at night into a story where a father wakes up the boy (or girl with short hair — it could go either way) and takes him out on a nighttime adventure. They say goodbye to mommy and the baby, but take the dog and cat along. They drive through the country to a dock, get on a boat, and go on a nighttime ride. You can imagine what a treat this would be for an older sibling to have a special trip with daddy after bedtime. Pearson has made each picture such a feast for the eyes, with incredible attention to detail and to the mood. A fantastic book that may inspire your own nighttime adventure.

Last week I had some great poetry collections, and now I have some great poetry picture books. If you have some favorites, share them in the comments.

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors
by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
What can I say about this book but lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely and oh yes, lovely. Taking us through all the seasons in colors, these short poems by Joyce Sidman pack a velvet-covered punch, while Pamela Zagarenski’s illustrations invite long-lingering looks and sighs. Truly, I want to live in the world that Zagarenski sees and sink into the descriptions of Sidman’s words:

In SPRING,
Red sings
from treetops:
cheer-cheer-cheer,
each note dropping
like a cherry
into my ear.

For today’s three highlighted books, I wanted to include another title from this dynamic duo — This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness — a book that rocked my world with its deft and deep understanding of human nature. It makes me cry. And now I’ve squeezed in a mention, so HAH! Try to fence me in, Thursday Three format that I invented.

Speak To Me (And I Will Listen Between The Lines)
by Karen English, illustrated by Amy Bates
I bring up this book a lot, I know, but it really sticks with me. I don’t know that I can verify that it captures the feel of an urban school — though it sure seems that way — but I do know that it really captures the feelings of third graders. Feeling pride in an eighth birthday. Worrying about losing a best friend to another girl in the class. Daydreaming. Saving a seat at lunch. Each poem is told from the point of view of one of the kids in the class, most of whom are African American. The illustrations capture the feel of the kids and the poems in every nuance of expression. A perfect classroom book, for sure, but also a wonderful book to share at home.

If Not for the Cat
by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Ted Rand
The title begs to be finished, so here is the poem of the mouse:
“If not for the cat, And the scarcity of cheese, I could be content.” Every time I reference this book, I have to double-check that the poet is indeed Prelutsky because it doesn’t fit with the sillier style I’ve come to associate with him. But yes, it’s him crafting these perfect poems about seventeen different animals. The poems are accessible for children, but take some thought too — along with offering some challenging, evocative words. The illustrations are beautiful, with a great use of detail and color to support the haiku. Purists will note that it isn’t true haiku as they don’t all feature the requisite seventeen syllables, but I don’t feel the need to split hairs with someone who thinks to describe jellyfish moving “gelatinously.” Brilliant stuff, this.

For National Poetry Month I’m sharing three poetry collections for kids of all ages. It’s possible — and I’m not tossing out blame here — that you’ve thought of the poetry progression as Mother Goose, Shel Silverstein, and whatever they hand out in middle school. That’s okay, because I was once like you. But now you can start your foray into poetry with these incredible collections.

A Kick In the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Foms
selected by Paul Janeczko, illustrated by Chris Raschka
Whether it’s starting small with an Odgen Nash couplet and moving on through to a Shakespeare sonnet, or showing a limerick where we all know the form to a pantoum where we learn something completely new, this book both serves as both a collection of poems and a primer of forms. Along with sample poems from a variety of poets, each form is explained briefly, but in a fun, entirely accessible way, from the youngest readers to us poetry-deprived adults. The bright, lively, abstract illustrations of Raschka capture the different tones of the poems and lend to the lightness of the collection. You can pick up this book in paperback, so it’s a ridiculously low investment for a lifetime of understanding poetic forms.

Poetry Speaks to Children
edited by Elis Paschen and Dopminque Raccah, illustrated by Wendy Rasmussen, Judy Love, and Paula Zinngrabe Wendland
This is an amazing collection of modern and classic poems from a diverse group of poets that includes Ogden Nash, Langston Hughes, Sonia Sanchez, and Roald Dahl. I love the eclectic feel where “Gas” by C.K. Williams is one page away from a poem from Macbeth, where a Native American poem taken from a Osage prayer is followed by a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The book is accompanied by a CD of many of the poems read by the poets, which means that thanks to archival copies, today’s children can hear readings from Robert Frost and Langston Hughes, among others. Three illustrators bring these poems to life, giving us a mix of styles, while still keeping a general consistency throughout the book. Absolutely one of of my favorite poetry books.

Side by Side: New Poems Inspired by Art from Around the World
edited by Jan Greenberg
Poetry and art. Multiple languages and multicultural images. Enriching and educational, this collection is masterful in its presentation. Each poem is written in the poet’s native language, as well as in English, and collectively represent a wide range in style and subject. Each page is illustrated by an iconic, related work of art, which is such a natural fit to poetry that it makes the book inspired. The overall sophistication makes this a collection for the older elementary child on up. While it would be a pleasure to own and peruse in any home library, I have to say that it would be ideal for the classroom.

On the topic of poetry, there is a full month of blogging events listed at at KidLitosphere Central. If you need to start with dipping your feet in the poetry pool, let me suggest Gotta Book’s 30 Poets/30 Days, Miss Rumphius Effect’s Poetry in the Classroom, and Poetry for Children’s Poetry Tag.

This post was previously published at PBS Booklights.

I’m not a big fan of dogs, or poetry for that matter, though I had dogs growing up and I’ve explored poetry as a grown-up. However, I am a fan of cleverness and art and words, all of which combine in this masterful book, A Dazzling Display of Dogs, written by Betsy Franco and illustrated by Michael Wertz.

Tributes to the messy, crazy, quirky, and endearing qualities of the canine are merged with creative artistic styling, moving the words beyond concrete poems and into illustration itself. The contrasting palette of blues and oranges — opposites on the color spectrum, look it up — make the pictures pop with a retro look, while subtle tones on the scale give other pages a dreamlike feel. Throughout the book the words are incorporated into the illustrations so that words and art enhance each other in an almost inseparable way. For instance, I can’t even share my favorite poem here, because it would lose half of its effect by not have the words contained with the shapes of seven flying seagulls. So instead:

When Lucy the Cat Came to My Home

When i saw that the squirt
Was here to stay,
That she certainly wasn’t
Going away,
i concluded we had to
Cohabitate,
And the thing to do was
COOPERATE!
(on cold, dark nights
her purring’s great!)

Even in this poem, I have to mention that round shapes around the cuddling animals heads form the Os in COOPERATE. And that the poem is written in all caps, except for the i’s, which are lowercase. But if I copied that exact format online it would look like I was shouting, while instead on the page it invites the reader to share in a special moment of acceptance. A fantastic book for dog-lovers certainly, but also for connoisseurs of Art and Words and Poetry.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at A Wrung Sponge. And by the way, I must mention that it’s... Friday, friday! Gotta get down on Friday! Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend!

For the last day of Newbery Discussion Week, it seemed appropriate to use Poetry Friday to talk about the one book of poetry — or rather, the one non-historical fiction title — honored with an award. Oh, and today’s Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by Rasco from RIF.

The night’s a sea of dappled dark
the night’s a feast of sound and spark
the night’s a wild enchanted park.
Welcome to the night!

Dark Emperor and other Poems of the Night is a picture book of poetry featuring the natural elements of the nighttime. Prior to the awards, I had looked at this title in terms of the Caldecott, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the book had a description of the illustration process. (Publishers, can we start doing this more with picture books? Thanks!) The artwork is made by relief printing, printed from different blocks in several colors, and then hand-colored. As noted by the illustrator, “There are definitely faster methods of making a picture, but few more enjoyable in a backwards sort of way.” The illustrations are amazing and detailed — especially in an early print, which shows many of the creatures the reader will discover in the coming poems. Personally, I found myself more drawn to the simpler, smaller pictures that accented each poem, but all of the prints were quite special.

I wish I could say the same for the poetry, but I did not find the poems in this book to be anything out of the ordinary for a children’s book. It wasn’t bad poetry, but nothing gripped me in this book. I was disappointed, because I love two of Sidman’s other books. In last year’s Caldecott honors winner Red Sings from Treetops, I melted over the perfect phrasing and rhythms, and This Is Just to Say moved me with the expressions of apology and forgiveness. But the poems in Dark Emperor seemed flat. They were descriptive and even educational, but I didn’t connect to them. I also felt a little cheated by a book of poetry with only twelve poems. The rest of the required thirty-two pages were taken up with a full spread print to start and end the book, and informational description of each natural element in the poem, a table of contents, and glossary.

But look, I’ll admit that I’m no poetry buff or even particularly a poetry lover, so I’d welcome other opinions of this title. What did you think of it?

I have become well aware that we are closing in on the last days of summer. While many of you are sending the kids to school already, here in Virginia we have another two weeks — plus a spare, long weekend — and I’m clinging onto these eighteen days as our last gasp of freedom before Schedules come to take over our lives.

However, even I can no longer deny that school is just around the corner, so yesterday I shared some back-to-school titles at PBS Booklights, and today I’m sharing a poem that seems to speak of my own reluctance to leave summer behind.

The School Boy
by William Blake 
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn.
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Read the rest of the poem at Famous Poems and Poets and find more poems through Poetry Friday, hosted today at Teach Poetry.

I was going to post yesterday, but was floored by the number of options available given the day. I mean, you had April Fool’s Day, the first day of Poetry Month, Passover, Easter weekend, my Booklights day, and my Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie viewing. Too much!

So let’s knock this out here. Fuse#8 got me with her April Fool’s Day joke, but I’ll just focus on the laughing and direct you the hysterical book I’ve been reading lately. It’s not for kids, and may be a little blue for many adults, but boy is it funny. If you like comedy — and who doesn’t — check out I Killed: True Stories from the Road from America’s Top Comics.

Poetry Month is off and running among the blogs, and the schedule is available as its own page at KidLitosphere Central. Nice School Library Journal write-up, too.

I was dying to embed the Steven Colbert video where he shows off the new Passover Plague puppets. Watch it at the thirteen minute mark (the second segment) below. We’ve been laughing about it all week. “I don’t know... be alive.”


For Easter, I was going to write about back-up bunny books that you could pick up if you missed your holiday grab at the library. Then I realized that there were over three hundred picture books featuring rabbits at my local library, so I’m going to point to Beatrix Potter and leave it at that. I reserved my Booklights post for a shout-out to poetry month.

Also, I saw Diary of a Wimpy Kid with my thirteen- and ten-year-old daughters, and we all loved it. I laughed a lot and throughly enjoyed myself. The casting is excellent, and the film captures the feel of the book while expanding on it and making it feel stunningly realistic. The kids look like real kids. What kind of way is that to make a movie? (Pssst! Hollywood? An excellent way.)

I’m offline for a few days to enjoy the pleasant holiday weekend. Hope you have the sunshine that we have here. It’s beginning to feel like... spring.

Note: Edited to embed the Colbert clip.

It doesn’t feel like Valentine’s Day is this weekend. I mostly blame the snow, because it has taken up most of my mental energy. The storm also canceled school for the week, meaning no classroom parties with cupcakes, candy, and cheap cards. The sales hype hasn’t gotten to me because the only store I’ve visited in weeks is Ross, where in a fit of snow-crazed boredom I encouraged my teen to try on dresses for a dance in May.

We took home two that both looked amazing on her and spent thirty bucks total. I love Ross.

This outing came back to me as I was looking for a poem to share from Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love, by Pat Mora. In fact, this is probably the poem that I like best from the collection because it so clearly captures a teen’s insecurity and a relative’s unconditional love.

Mirrors
Grandma makes me mad.
    “You’re beautiful. Tan linda.”
when I’m studying my face,
boring as old bread,
my wide waist,
    “Tan linda,”
my hard-to-hide hips,
my too-flat chest,
my eyes that won’t open wide
and round like my sister’s,
that hypnotize guys.
    “Tan linda.”

What does Grandma see?

This poetry collection features a fair share of romantic love for teens, involves asking for dates, holding hands, kissing and missing, but love is also expressed for Papi, sisters, grandparents, and the family cat. And there are love poems for swimming, writing and music.

I really wanted to love this collection of love poems. But I have to be honest and say that the some wasn’t enough. Some of the poems had Spanish words that gave the work a sense of culture and place. But far too few. Only one poem was translated in Spanish after the English version, and I don’t know why more poems weren’t done this way. Some of the poems had footnotes about poetic structure, but where this could have been a useful learning tool expanding the reach of this book, it wasn’t used very often. Most of the poems were free verse with no footnotes. Some of the poems had engaging phrases, like the above sentiment of the teen seeing her face as “boring as old bread,” or the “dizzy in your eyes” haiku that gives the book its name. But more often I felt like I was reading sentences broken apart in phrases for emphasis.

I was most disappointed by the use of space, or rather the lack of use. Except for the few with footnotes, each poem faced a page with a light gray pattern of circles or rectangles. So the page count is at least twice what it needs to be, making it seem like a more substantive collection than it is. The format was particularly irritating when the poems ran onto the next page, but only for a few lines.

So, I have to say that I’m torn. The book captures a middle-schooler mindset and showcases a variety of types of love. And yet, it didn’t give me enough. As a special offer, I’d be willing to give this book a chance in the hands of another reviewer. If you’d like a nice hard-copy book to read and possibly review, leave me a comment and I’ll choose a winner at random.

Lee Wind has the Poetry Friday Round-Up today, so head over there and see what’s cooking.

Before I sent the fourth grader to school today, I called her over to select a poem.

“It’s Poem in My Pocket Day, so we have to find a poem for you to carry around,” I said. “We don’t have much time to copy it, so it will have to be short.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you making this up or is this a real day?”

We found a very short poem that we both liked for its Springtime feel. I wrote it out quickly, stuffed it in her back pocket, and sent her on her way. I’ll be curious to find out if she did share it with anyone. From Poetry Speaks to Children, my favorite can’t-recommend-it-enough poetry book, here’s Emanuel di Pasquale’s “The Sun Has a Tail”:

The sun has a tail
that reaches under the earth
and tickles seeds.
That’s what grandmother
once told me.
She says things grow
in laughter.

What am I carrying in my pocket? I was going to go with a favorite, “Our Deepest Fear.” (Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.) But I saw a new poem at Gotta Book and it just feels right for the day. And shorter. So I’m carrying this one, from April Halprin Wayland. (First, read the title of the poem, and the poet’s name. Be clear. Now completely disappear.) April is part of a new blog, TeachingAuthors, as one of six children’s authors who also teach writing. Love the concept and the site looks great. Don’t miss it.

Inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander talks with Stephen Colbert about poetry. She gets in some wonderful explanations, even as he gets the laughs with such questions as: “What’s the difference between a metaphor and a lie?” Good stuff.

Poetry Friday round-up is hosted at Adventures in Daily Living. Hey, did I just submit the first video for Poetry Friday? I’m a maverick.

Edited to add: For some great weekend reading, don’t miss the January Carnival of Children’s Literature hosted at Under the Covers. Great timing. Now I have something to do at work today. I mean, on Saturday... on my own time.