Poetry Friday-Silver People Review

          Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting today at her wonderful blog, The Poem Farm. Nice to be visiting the farm today, Amy!

If you'd enjoy discovering all kinds of great things happening during April, for poetry month, see this post by Jama Rattigan, at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

And, don't forget the Progressive Poem hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem! Today's line will be created by Anastasia Suen. It's already getting interesting! 

     These past few days I've been enjoying my spring break, catching up on different tasks, including reading. I'm excited to share a book I've just completed, Silver People: Voices From The Panama Canal, a verse novel out just on March 25th.

        It’s a pleasure to read great novels in verse, filled with strong voices and images. Sharing important stories in beautiful words of poetry grabs me every time. I sink into the story, admiring the ability of those who are able to tell stories that sing. And I am always left wanting more of the lives that have been told.

        I’ve looked forward to Margarita Engle’s book Silver People since I first heard about it. I read about the amazing feat of the building of the Panama Canal in a brief book by David McCullough a long time ago. Then last week, I read a children’s non-fiction book in order to gain some additional background of the construction, knowing the book was about to be published. I realize I cannot know the story of every part of history, but when I supported my students’ research, I pressed them to ask, as I do, “what is the ‘other’ story?” the one that hasn’t been told. Do you remember the radio pieces by Paul Harvey? And now, in my mind, the Canal was a feat like few others, but because of Margarita’s book, I know the “rest of the story”.

Some New, Some Older This Week

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Jen and Kellee at TEACH.MENTOR.TEXTS.  Head over for much to choose from!  And, also visit Sheila at BOOK JOURNEYS that offers more reviews of all kinds of books, adult and children. 

  

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Almost Home – Joan Bauer

           I just finished Blue Balliett’s Hold Fast, and have read One for The Murphy’s by Linda Mullahy Hunt, a favorite last year.  This book by Joan Bauer is another treasure about being homeless, so much to share about the feelings and experiences one has that I hadn’t thought about.  When Sugar, the main character, is told to “go out there and set the world on fire”, she replies, “Yes, ma’am, I will.”  but further thoughts reveal more: “Every time she said it, I felt a little candle trying to light in my heart.  It’s hard to light a candle in the wind.”  The book is filled with exquisite scenes, as Sugar makes her way through her troubled time, and thank goodness, finally in a loving foster home setting.  There is so much to enjoy in this book despite the underlying sorrow.  There is a loving and smart mother who can’t seem to make good choices and a passed-on grandfather who has written a book of ‘how-to’ live life.  Grandfather’s book Bauer creates, and shares parts of, could be a little book of advice for anyone, but this time, the words are what Sugar clings to as she faces so many challenges.  It’s a terrific read!

Beauty In Children's Novels Written In Verse

Poetry Friday can be enjoyed with Carol at Carol's Corner!

Home Sweet Home

No matter what kind of writing I am working with both personally and in my teaching, I always return to saying, “tell the story”.  Recently, I have read several books that tell their wonderful stories in verse.  They are both written for children, and both are heartbreaking in the telling of memories of place.  They communicate more than about being homesick, but rather grief stricken or heartsick for their homes.  Thanhha Lai won the National Book Award this year for her poetic novel, Inside Out And Back Again, which tells the tale of a family immigrating to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon.  And Karen Hesse, whose book Out Of The Dust won the Newbery in 1998, also wrote Aleutian Sparrow, a chronicling of the removal of the Aleut people from their homes in the Aleutian islands in order to protect them from the Japanese at the beginning of World War II.  They were not allowed to return, although the Japanese threat ended in 1942, until April of 1945, only to find their villages looted and destroyed.  It can’t be easy to write an entire novel in verse, but these two writers, along with others, create something very easy to read.  I’d like to share a little bit from each.

From Inside Out And Back Again:

         When the main character’s mother visits a kind of fortuneteller in the New Year:        

This year he predicts

         our lives will twist inside out.

         Maybe soldiers will no longer

         patrol our neighborhood,

maybe I can jump rope

          after dark,

         maybe the whistles

         that tell Mother

         to push us under the bed

         will stop screeching.

From Aleutian Sparrow:

         I was six when I stood outside Alfred’s grandfather’s house,

                  where the old ways steep like tea in a cup of hours.

and: 

Most of us dreamed of going Outside, hungry for a taste of

         life beyond the Aleutians.

Few of us truly meant it, few of us ever really intended to

         leave the fog and the wind, the sun and the rain, the

         hunting and trapping and fishing, the easy welcome

         of neighbors.

We never thought who we were was so dependent on where

we were.

Other books in verse I’ve enjoyed are Love That Dog and Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech, Witness, also by Karen Hesse, the trilogy beginning with Make Lemonade by Virginia Ewer Wolfe, and Keesha’s House, by Helen Frost.  There are others.   Each tells a compelling story like the ones above, and is worthy of recommendations to students who might think they don’t like poetry, but do love to read a great story.