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Sunday, April 22, 2012

It's Monday - Read, Read, Read!



         Visit Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts for this meme where you can find many ideas for children's book (YA too!), and Sheila at Book Journeys for even more. 








Writing a poem every day in April and meeting the Monday reading meme expectations of telling what I've been reading each week & plans for the future has been rather a challenge itself.  I don't want to write small rhyming poems about each book, but do want to find a creative way to share the books as well as write a poem.  During the last week, someone wrote about the structure of a Cento, & I knew that I had to try this from the books I've read.  I have looked and cannot find the one blogger I read that told me about this first.  Please accept my apologies.  A Cento is an original poem made using lines from the works of various poets.
              A Cento is sometimes called “patchwork poetry,” and the term cento actually comes from the Latin word for patchwork.  As a quilt is pieced together from patches of fabric, the cento poem is put together with lines from other sources.  Each line should be taken from a different source and must make sense.  It doesn’t have to rhyme, but is a big accomplishment if it does.  The poet’s name and poem title should be acknowledged with the line.
          My Cento-Books This Past Week
(1) But the truth is, the world is much more like an algebraic equation.   With variables and with changes, complicated and messy.
 (2) Years blend together
as ever again, the dream begins.


(3) Children, large and small, run wildly about, screaming, laughing, falling down. climbing up, jumping, dancing.  


(4) The restless fluttering goes on all night.


(5) Sometimes someone says in a real loud voice, "Hello, World!  What have you got for us today?"
      Nobody ever answers, but we don't care.




(1) The Lions of Little Rock Kristen Levine - Strong female protagonist, finding her voice in the racist time the year after the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Great realistic family interactions.
(2) poem Winged Words (about Johann Gutenberg) Eureka! Poems About Inventors, Joyce Sidman and K. Bennett Chavez- Fantastic information and poetry about inventors from the discovery of clay to the invention of the Internet.
(3) story-Retired  Every Living Thing - Cynthia Rylant - brief stories about one particular moment when someone's life is changed because of an animal.  - Use as mentor text for fiction based on fact.
(4) Tree of Life, The World of the African Baobab - Barbara Bash - beautifully illustrated book that tells the animal relationships to the baobab tree, from its birth to death - terrific  example of non-fiction research in a picture book.
(5) The Hello Goodbye Window - Norton Juster and Chris Raschka - I'll give a longer review later, won the Caldecott medal for 2005.  Incredibly sweet story about the relationship between a grandchild & his grandparents, & a window that is special in the grandparents' house.


Next: (6) The Snow Chlld, Iowyn Ivey - so far, good.  The "magic" is starting!  And looking for short stories for a group of third/fourth graders.

     Also - check on the Poetry Tag Group shown at the right!  And find Jama Rattigan's blog post at Jama's Alphabet Soup  to discover so many Poetry sites in the kidlitosphere doing wonderful things!  Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining Mary Lee, at A Year of Reading in a poem a day this month. Other daily poem writers include Amy at The Poem Farm, and Donna at Mainely Write.  Plus Greg Pincus of Gotta Book has just published his first E-book, The Late Bird.  Now he's celebrating by giving one, or more, away.  See the blog that tells all about it  here

22 comments:

  1. I do admire your commitment to poetry this month! It's a labor of love, isn't it?

    I have heard good things (and whispers of Newbery) about The Lions of Little Rock. It sounds like an interesting time period for a fiction novel.

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    1. I do love the poetry, & have loved trying some new kinds this month. The book is quite a story of strength in children's friendships.

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  2. Have I told you how clever you are? Probably! This was so cool, and yes again, as "Teacher" said, a testament to your commitment. I love The Hello Goodbye Window, and Tree of Life, both are so good. I will have to look for Every Living Thing and The Lions of Little Rock, both sound great. Good stuff all around and a good way to start the week!

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    1. There are just so many good books to read. I've been searching our terrific school library for older ones that I've missed! Fun to make the discoveries. Thanks, Betsy.

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  3. Hi Linda - you've got a few books here that I've read. I'm a huge fan of Kristin Levine's and The Lions of Little Rock did not disappoint! I love your mention of Cynthia Rylant's book - she's long been a favorite and I can see how one could use her work again and again as mentor text. I'll track down a copy. Also, The Snow Child was an interesting read! It's use of fairy tale sort of reminded me of Anne Ursu's BREADCRUMBS. I loved learning about the Alaskan pioneer life. Thanks for sharing! Also, keep going, you, with the centos!

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    1. I love the journals about surviving in those harsh environments too, Irene, thus The Snow Child has been intriguing to me, how an author also injects the magical into what is also realistic. And yes, Rylant is often a source for showing students how to write. Thank you Irene. I'll be ready for tomorrow, I guess?

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  4. I LOVE the Hello, Goodbye Window! One of my favorites... most likely because my own grandparents have a Hello, Goodbye window that is previous to our family. We will all be sad someday when it no longer belongs to "us". :)

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    1. Thanks Jen for your memory! There are those little things that mean a lot in our homes, aren't there?

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  5. You are so clever! Love that Marlee poem. Haven't yet got to Hello, Goodbye Window for the Caldecott Challenge . . . it sounds lovely.

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    1. Thank you. Hello, Goodbye Window is a wonderful book. Don't forget to read it!

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  6. Oh, The Lions of Little Rock is one of my recent favorites. And Preschooler and I were listening to The Hello, Goodbye Window on audio in the car recently. Sweet story! And I love where she muses at the end about who her "Grandpa" will be :)

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    1. I'm glad others liked "Lions" too. Don't forget to look at the beautiful illustrations of the Hello, Goodbye Window too. They're awesome!

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  7. Oh, that looks like fun to do. Challenging, but fun! We've never been scared of a challenge, have we?! "The restless fluttering goes on all night." Great job.

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    1. I had marked some favorite passages in the Little Rock book, so looked there first, then went on the hunt. It was fun. Now the challenge is to get one to rhyme!

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  8. What a lot of great reading you've been up to! I've been stuck in a rut...perhaps because it's testing time! Ugh!

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    1. Thanks, Tara! If you look, though, it took me several weeks for the Lions of Little Rock book. I think the March challenge took a lot of reading time, then now April! I'll keep going, but it is slow for me too Tara.

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  9. Whatever you tackle, you manage to make it work beautifully. I had not heard of a cento poem before, but you did it very well.
    I'm anxious to read The Lions of Little Rock - thanks for the reminder!
    Have a wonderful week reading!

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    1. Thank you Karen. I did finally find where I saw it, on the Stenhouse blog. I had not heard of it before that either. Hope you like Lions!

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  10. Your poetry this month has been so inspiring and I love how you wrote about the books you read- I'm going to share the idea with my students :)

    Happy reading this week!

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    1. Thanks Kellee. I hope they'll have fun with this. I'd love to have students do it, especially with their favorite books!

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  11. Winged Words sounds like something I would truly enjoy. I've been reading so many reviews about the Hello Goodbye Window, I should just pick it up next time I'm hanging out at the library. You've been reading so many books, I hope I can still keep up.

    My daughter and I are reading Sounder together - it's a required reading for her class, she has already finished reading it, and I need to catch up with her. I'm also in Book 3 of the Chaos Walking Trilogy, Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, am still plodding along Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, but I'm glad I already finished reading "Becoming Billie Holiday" a novel in verse by Carole Boston Weatherford, I hope to review it for Nonfiction Monday. :)

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    1. I remember loving Sounder, but it's been a long while. I must look for the Chaos Walking books-they sound good & so many have talked about them. Thanks, Myra!

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