Poetry Friday - Election Changes

         Irene Latham at Live Your Poem hosts this mid-October Poetry Friday, sharing some fabulous, creative scarecrows and a poem about them, too. Thanks, Irene, for a perfect autumn post!

         Of all the craziness in this election time, my mind continues to return to those who are not answering questions put to them. I listen with focus, and it happens time and time again. I've been writing this poem for a while, mostly done "before" these recent events more alarming than simply not answering a question. It is not meant as a joke, but serious because I want the answers, and not the lies. 

         I have rarely heard or used the word “pivot” since my high school basketball days. However, in this election frenzy, this word has appeared often in the mouths of newscasters. It varies with the breaking news shared, but most of the time it means that a question is asked, a dilemma is faced, and the central person turns away to talk or effect a different, and meaningless, response, in order to change the direction of the topic. Argh, so frustrating!

      Ricochet

I will avert my eyes,

avoid all you surmise

about anything.

I will bend the query;

when you lunge, I parry

away your sting.

Picture Book Bios

   
              Thanks to Alyson Beecher's Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge at Kidlit Frenzy, those who link up share fabulous non-fiction picture books. I am grateful for all that I've learned through reading non-fiction picture books. 

       Now that we're seeing the importance of women in this current election, and they are stepping forward to share their opinions, it's great to read a book about two women long ago determined to make a splash to persuade the country to give women the vote. Hadley Hooper fills the pages with lots of yellow, the color that stood for Votes for Women everywhere! 

     In addition to the stars of this incredible trip, a yellow Saxon car is the third one. Nell Richardson and Alice Burke bought the car, packed what they thought were essentials into it, and took off on a 10,000 mile trip across the country and back. It was amusing that they they took a tiny typewriter in order to show how smart they were. When someone questioned it, they would take it out and whip up a poem! As for the sewing machine, the plan was to show that they could also continue to do traditional women's work. Nothing could stop them, not muddy roads, not a stubborn farmer driving a wagon, not a snowstorm! There is information at the back about automobiles during that time and about the struggle for women's equality, an author's note and a source list. It is a rousing story to share with children who need to know how hard some work toward accomplishing goals, for themselves and for many others!

         I loved reading this story, love all of Gershman's music. What a gift he had, and this particular one tells about his beginnings, roller skating by jazz clubs and staying to listen for hours. When the family finally purchased a piano they were astounded to see him play a sophisticated tune immediately. It's simply a story about Rhapsody In Blue, where George got his idea, and the marvelous parts added by chance. Stacy Innerst, illustrator, shares that her depictions are based on archival photographs, and they reflect that "Rhapsody", too, all in blue tones. The pages are nearly like the music, innovative page by page. The story offers just enough to spark an interest in knowing more. There are author's and illustrator's notes, a timeline, a bibliography and acknowledgments.

        Reading non-fiction books is quite a pleasure. The history is brought to life with creative story-telling and illustration. I'm so glad that children get to learn parts of history from these wonderful picture books!

My Play Weekend

       I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today. It's always a pleasure to read what everyone writes about their lives.

         “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

      You probably already know, for sure, that a large slice of my life includes my two grand-girls. A part of my heart will always be occupied by them and by my grandson, now in another state and growing up so fast. He's fifteen and about to get his driver's permit! Wow!

      Saturday and Sunday I stayed at my daughter, Sarah & son-in-law, Dave's home with the grand-girls so that the parents could go away for these short two days to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary. They have a new dog, a rescued two year old cattle dog, so we all thought it would be better to stay at their home. He was great, and now I know him better, a nice thing. We did not go anywhere, but spent the days together. We played, they played, I read, they played, I cooked, they played, I did laundry, we played, we read, they entertained. We watched some funny mini-movies that held magic and fairies in a bit of mystery, And then we read more books, and the girls played some more. We didn't have to go anywhere, and usually we do, but it was one of those weekends when there was no expectation except fun.

Monday Reading - Great Books

           Every Monday, it's a pleasure to link up with a group that reviews books they want to share with others. Come discover new books!

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.   

Tweet #IMWAYR

There's still time to nominate a favorite book for the Cybil's Awards. Do it by Oct. 15th Here!

      I reviewed Skila Brown's verse novel To Stay Alive for Poetry Friday. Read it here!

       I am a grandmother and I was recently a teacher, and sometimes a student would share with me that she or he didn't know the grandparents. They lived far away, the family was somehow estranged, and sometimes they had already passed on. It made me very sad because I had wonderful memories of my own grandparents. 

         In this wonderful book set in the 1950's by Augusta Scattergood, eleven year old Azalea is about to get to know her Grandmother Clark, no matter how much she does not wish to! Azalea tells her story and begins with her grandmother writing Azalea's daughter to ask for help. The grandmother has fallen, and needs someone to do some gardening and housekeeping while she heals. Although we soon learn that there has been an estrangement between Azalea's grandmother and mother, they have stayed somewhat in touch. The story begins with Azalea's resentment at being sent, her counting the days till she can return to her own home and best friend, Barbara Jean. Now, Grandmother Clark even wants her to get to know a young boy who's a little older, Billy Wong, who will also be a garden helper. Azalea doesn't like to talk to new people. She's shy and wonders why in the world she's landed in this awful little town where everyone knows everyone! 

          Soon the story widens to include Billy Wong's problems, a bully already in the town who isn't nice at all, but has his own problems. There is a terrific thread about the Chinese grocery in town owned by Billy's Great-Uncle and Aunt, and some added information in an afterword about the Chinese groceries prominent in the south during this time. After nearly every chapter, Augusta has added a short written poetic piece by Billy himself, sometimes funny, often poignant, the words of a smart 13 year old young Chinese boy who just wants to learn and go to a good school. Through conflicts and "have-tos", Azalea begins to learn that she can talk to strangers, stick up for friends against harsh words, and finally, finally get to know her grandmother enough to tell some truths that need to be told. For a middle grade book that seems just right for middle graders, the plot is complicated just enough to make the reader want to turn the page, and discover what will happen next. I enjoyed Azalea's voice, and the discovery about her relationship with her grandmother especially.

Poetry Friday - A New Verse Novel

         Thanks to Violet Nesdoly, our host for Poetry Friday today! She's celebrating Poetry Camp where so many PF people camped out with poetry last weekend, thanks to Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. Visit here to see all the links!

       FYI -  I am serving on the Cybil's Poetry group again this year, this time Round One. I want to remind you that anyone can nominate a favorite book that was published from Oct. 16th, 2015 to Oct. 15th, 2016, when nominations close. Go HERE if you're interested!

          As serendipity goes, I had an arc of this verse novel from Candlewick Press, just out this October. I read it last week, and it has been nominated in the Cybil's poetry category. Verse novels are as diverse as stand alone poems are, always interesting to read an author's approach. With more being written in these recent years, I am sorry not to be in the classroom in order to see how they might affect the writing of my students, many of whom loved poetry and all types of writing. Would they try a short story in verse? Or a non-fiction research essay? It feels as if these verse novels will affect students in both their knowledge and opinions of how poetry can work for them as writers. 

To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party - Skila Brown

          I've lived at the foot of the Rocky Mountains for a long time, and in the winter there are always stories of people lost. It's frightening to imagine. They are often alone, have driven off an embankment far enough down so that no one spots the car, or decided to go snowshoeing and are lost in a sudden storm. But they do have a good chance of being rescued because of technology and rescue groups.This was not true of the plight of the Donner party in 1846.

          Skila Brown has written a lovely, but heartbreaking verse novel about the Donner Party. We know of this story in Colorado, but she has made it a new telling through the use of poetry and by having the story told with one voice, Mary Ann. She is the second to oldest daughter of the Graves family at nineteen years. There are twelve in this family, one "in-law" married to the oldest daughter, a mother and father and the ten other children from seventeen years to an infant. They are a real family from this history, and the story is taken from accounts written by members of all the Donner group and others who met them along the way.    

     

           Through Mary Ann's voice, Skila Brown uses the poems to introduce characters--the strong and scared, the kind and mean. Taken together we begin to see how the adventure will go, with Mary Ann's excitement and support of her father as they begin, and walk and walk, then walk some more. The poems lengthen when a particular quiet scene is shown, adding the details of setting and people’s interactions. Then they shorten as the challenges continue to appear--quick, brief lines, like when one breathes fast with stress. There is beauty shown in brief words, comparisons with Mary Ann's past, and her first impressions.

            Attention to word placement adds to the movement, this never-stopping journey: “The days seem/agonizingly long” (large space) “frightening short”. It's hard to imagine walking hundreds of miles, and the poems show the repetition of scenery. It becomes endless prairie, no-relief of horizon desert, mountain up-and-down canyons. Finally arrives the snow, the endless snow. In a story where although one already knows the sad end, the poems stand alone as this small group walks: they dance to a fiddle, watch the food dwindle: “Father unwraps the beef, carefully slices/each of us a piece, as big as a finger.”  The uncomfortable predictions are there all along this journey made of hope, grit, and finally resignation. One favorite line comes as they choose to move up into the mountains, seeing storm clouds, but hoping that the snow will only last a day. It did not.

"Everything's being slowly painted white./as if we're climbing up into winter." It’s a poignant story told again in verse.