Non-Fiction Poetry

  Alyson Beecher welcomes bloggers to share their favorite non-fiction picture books every Wednesday on her blog, KidLit Frenzy. I hope you enjoy all the posts, and learn about the beautiful non-fiction available today.

     America at War, poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn

100,000 Poets

Marjorie at PaperTigers is our host today the last of September's Poetry Fridays.  I hope you all have a good time reading everyone's sharing. 

Tabatha at  The Opposite of Indifference asked others to contribute a poem to commemorate 100 Thousand Poets for change, which officially occurs on Sept. 29th.  It's a world-wide gathering of poets for social, environmental and political change.  My poem comes from both loss of loved ones to war and pride in those who fought (fight) for us.  It is with mixed feelings that I write.

                                    Fading

Whose mother cries for them, what wife sighs for them?

Now, offer prayers to the children who yearn for them.

And what of the soldiers who think of their homes;

they sigh as they dream, through the memories roam.

Peaceful for those times they’re able to rest

before going on duty, and put to the test.

They feel warmth and kinship for family afar

keep photos in pockets, sugar in a jar.

And at home, the mothers, and children and wives,

are working so hard to carry on with their lives.

They're keeping the futures wrapped close for the making

for one day when finally war memories are fading.

photo credit: The U.S. Army via photopin cc

Ephemera From The Past

Please visit the ever entertaining Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference, who is hosting Poetry Friday today.  There’s all kinds of poetry sharing to be discovered!  Thanks very much Tabatha!

           I have been sifting through many boxes of things stored in our house for some time; some from my mother-in-law's things.  In one of those boxes, I found a diary written by her mother, whose son fought in World War II.  The diary is simply written, the words of a farmwoman who rose each day and cleaned, visited, baked, canned, sewed, washed and hung clothes to dry, sometimes in the basement when it was too cold out and the clothes would freeze on the line.  On Sundays, she attended church.  Those are the tasks she recorded of her life.  On the inside cover, she wrote:  Be a lamplighter.  We shall shine as the stars of the morning, something for us all to aspire to.

Two Books Based on Truth - But About Lies

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee!  Visit to find still more books for your TBR list!


  It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books that you can't live without.

I managed to finish two books this week: The Blood Lie by Shirley Reva Vernick and An Elephant In The Garden by Michael Morpurgo (War Horse).  They are both fiction stories, but based on truth.  

The Blood Lie is an alarming story about a little girl lost, prejudices jumping to conclusions, and will be useful in middle school or higher in discussing how people act out of fear when they encounter differences, and the terrible result of a seed planted with rumors and lies.  In this particular story, one person needed to move the searchers out of the woods where people were searching for the girl because he was waiting for an illegal liquor delivery. (It was the time of Prohibition.) So, he told the story that Jewish people made sacrifices of young children in order to use their blood on special holy days.   It is based on an event that happened in a community of Massena, New York in 1928, when a young girl disappeared and a Jewish boy was accused of her murder.  Five years later Hitler held the reins of power in Germany.