Poetry Friday - Naomi Shihab Nye In My Life

           Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading hosting this Friday, her first I believe, of summer break. Thanks, Mary Lee! Enjoy your summer fun!

                 A month ago, Tabatha invited us to join her for a Poetry Friday full of poetry by Naomi Shihab Nye or inspired by her. Not long after, Nye was honored as the new Young People's Poetry Laureate. It is wonderful that we will hear from her all the year ahead, as will teachers all over the country, and now our celebration today from those who are taking this challenge.
            I taught all the years in an independent school for gifted children. My love and commitment was for middle-school-aged children, often having students for three years, but always for two. The final years I spent with all ages as the literacy coach. I loved teaching but realized that many of my students had few opportunities to know about other lives in our country, our world. Naomi Shihab Nye entered my life when I discovered two of her anthologies, This Same Sky and the flag of childhood, poems from the middle east. I no longer have the first one as I passed it on to a young teacher whom I mentored; both  brought lives from others into my students' lives. For that, and so many more books from Naomi Shihab Nye, I am grateful.

       One poem I have used since discovering it is from the book Come With Me, Poems for a Journey, illustrated by Dan Vaccarino. I often had students write oral histories and poems from their discoveries of new lives different from theirs and sometimes a childhood memory. This poem was a start.

Tío Pete

He was old as a basket

and he carried more
than a basket carries.

Where he was going
tasted green and sweet
as the inside of a melon
that sleeps for days
in the sun.

His pants were gray flannel,
and his sturdy heart a stem.
He remembered when the streets
were made of bricks.

For you he brought the fruit of papaya,
the yellow bell of the tree.
For you he brought a worn leash
to link you to your little dog.
No more little dogs for him.

He was old as a basket
and he carried the days
before you were born.

So you opened
     your door
with a hundred
happy arms.

He sat in a chair
          and made

      a different

           country

               there.          

       One final book I would recommend is Salting the Ocean, 100 poems by young poets. This book is filled with unknown child poets from the years of Naomi's school visits, one I used often to show how wonderful it is to write one's own story in poetry. In her forward, these words inspire: "You are making a map of the days you live."

Non-Fiction Links to Fiction

Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  Thanks to her hosting and sharing and those who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  I always learn from these books, am happy that they are more and more available today for children, for everyone!

            These two books celebrate water, one is full of the facts in a quick and fun look at all the places it can be found. The other, though an imagined story, fills us with smiles, too, with just one thing, a puddle, and that delight found where one can SPLASH!

               Antoinette Portis choose few, but perfect, words to show all kinds of ways to discover water with one young girl, Zoe, telling this tale of water. Simply brushed shades of blues and greens with white bring water right into the picture! Beginning with a faucet, "Hey water! I know you! You're all around." and experiencing the actions as water sprays up in a sprinkler, down in a shower, gurgles in a stream. Pictures focus on the water feature with the word (like 'stream' or 'fog') incorporated into the illustrations with just-right additions, like people and trees by a stream, a whale in the ocean, and lest we forget, a dewdrop on a blade of grass. The double-page spread describing fog is lovely to see, "You drift in the air and hide/the world." It's a poetic way to show water's omnipresence, including ice and snow! There are three added pages of information that explain "water forms", "the water cycle", and "conserving water". It's a terrific book for the jumping off of a study of water.

          With only a focus on one puddle, this time on a school playground, a large one surrounded by smaller 'sisters and brothers, so dainty and sweet,/so shallow'. Soon gone by 'sudden sunshine', this puddle also worries about more rain, a poodle "piddle" in the puddle, and a shoe with two toes showing. More experiences include a duck, being alone, and the final reflection, a surprise. Richard Jackson's words bounce through in quick time as Chris Raschka's illustrations fill the page with color and the slightly distorted view a puddle gives. It's a clever and imaginative book that will be fun to include in a study of water or after a rainstorm, plus considering different perspectives.

It's Monday - Beautiful Books Again!

Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who post their favorites. 
         I'll need to skip next Monday, am leaving this Wednesday to travel to my grandson's high school graduation. It is an exciting time for our family! I'll read on the plane, but suspect that's about it! Here are the books I've read this past week!
         

          Anytime there is a book with a quest, I'm in. (I re-read The Hobbit once in a while!) Yes, I finished this one and now how long might be the wait for the next adventure for brave, growing-up and now adventurous Byx and her companions, humans Khara and Renzo, catlike felivet Gambler, and the small and mighty Tobble? They have continued their journey to find the traveling island of Tarok, hoping to find more dairnes, saving Byx from being the last one of her species. The plot expands into political strife and danger in the land with the reigning dictator, the Murdano, gearing up to fight the other vicious Kazar Sg’drit, enslaving species to build his army. Connections to today's political challenges including war, prejudices of 'other', and human trafficking may go unnoticed by children, but not by adult readers. Khara is rising as a leader in the coming war and her companions, including Byx, will face the battle with her. Now we must wait for number three! Katherine Applegate's imagined world in this series is extraordinary! 

        Oh, wow, this is a gorgeous book, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline and a story full of nostalgia by Michelle Houts. Some years ago, a young boy spends the summer with his grandmother at her cottage by the sea. He finds what he learns is a piece of sea glass, smoothed by its tumbling in the ocean from, perhaps, years ago. Grandmother tells that each piece is connected by a story, one we may never know, but it has one. She gives him his grandfather's magnifying glass to look at his found treasures more closely. Turning the page, Houts imagines the story in the boy's dream, illustrated in muted black and white by Ibatoulline, a beautiful time travel transition to a ship’s christening and a schooner tossed in a tempest’s fury. Sadly, the boy drops the magnifying glass which breaks and he tosses the pieces into the sea. The story moves on to present day and a young girl also discovering sea glass, a particularly special piece that "might" be part of that same glass. Houts shares the story which feels real, but no matter real or not, looking for sea glass and imagining its story will make the adventure (if you can ever have one) a wonderful thing. 
          There is a brief author's note that speaks of the time in the past when many dumped all their trash in the ocean and the change today to be more environmentally conscious. Thanks to Candlewick Press for the copy.

         First time published in the U.S., this is sure to be a favorite for young dinosaur lovers! Jason Cockcroft tells and illustrates this new book with a twist. What if you received an enormous package in the mail one day and in it was an egg that soon hatched a dinosaur? It is a sweet one, but huge (of course), and this young boy needs to learn how to manage some "huge" challenges. He must fix breakfast for his new pet (It is not picky, will eat anything.); how to teach it to share, especially at the playground; and, worse of all but funny, too, how to clean up the enormous piles of poop. Cockcroft's illustrations show a lively, but positive outlook for this new adventure in bright and colorful pages. (The other pet, the dog, adds humor, too.) He ends the story with a sleepy, lovable pet and a happy little boy. Thanks to Candlewick Press for the copy!

Poetry Friday - Sinking In

It's Poetry Friday, this day hosted by Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche. She's sharing some marvelous "pi-ku" written by her students in response to a nature trip. 


            Our cold, rainy, snowy few days last week appears to have released the spring magic that is GREEN. I sink into its richness, took one picture that shows some of what I see. Oh, yes, other colors are emerging, but first, GREEN is the star of this spring production.

Green

winter

wean

spring

green

leaves

preen

butter

sheen

charm

seen

gone

mean

season

queen

dazzle

scene

baby

clean

 Linda Baie ©

Non-Fiction Picture Books Fill Varied Needs

Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  Thanks to her hosting and sharing and those who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  I always learn from these books, am happy that they are more and more available today for children, for everyone!

      It's a new poetry book, a new non-fiction picture book, and a new science book. For young students starting to study animal behavior and for older ones who need mentor texts that show how to write poetry while including the factual information, this, a book out recently, fits the description beautifully. 
       Susannah Buhrman-Deever writes varied poems in the voices of eleven pairs of animals, sometimes in two voices, sometimes single ones, often with sounds, which appear to be a large part of these animals' survival. In a brief introduction, she emphasizes the top priority, "to survive and raise young". Each creature's words show the way they fight to keep safe, or attack to have a meal. In some, it's poison, and others use sound to escape. Amazing to learn, but a 'Big Dipper Firefly is poisonous, but when lured to the Female Pennsylvania Firefly by her flash, she attacks and eats him in order to "get those chemicals for themselves". Things are not always what is expected!

         Femme Fatale
              My treasure?
              A light in the dark.
              I seek you,
              flashing 
              for love.
              I am hungry.

        Text boxes add to the poems and illustrations with information about the animals, and clever gatefolds in some spreads allow Kitchen’s illustrations to fill the scene before opening to read the poems and explanation.  
        Here is a sample of a double page spread, showing the realistic and gorgeous watercolor and gouache illustrations by Bert Kitchen. At night and in the day, in varied settings of field and woods, he adds his magic to Susannah's poetry and to the magic of animals' lives who use intriguing ways to survive.

         It would be fun for students to list all the different methods used for protection, like movement, voice, creating a certain sound, camouflage, and more! It's a terrific book for learning the mysteries of nature. There is an extensive bibliography added at the end.