It's Monday - Wonderful Books - Don't Miss

      

    Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!

      

            I suspect all adults should be reading this, too, especially because if you don't know how middle kids are, you should. And if you don't understand the racism Jordan and his friends fight against daily, you should. Finally, after teaching middle school kids for many years, you adults should read to see how smart, yet vulnerable, and tender, yet hardheaded already by eighth grade. Here are all the kids around Jordan, despised and loved, on their way out the middle school door but first, the school trip. This one is to Paris where they learn to push others to do the right thing, or else! Like the first two, Jerry Craft has Jordan giving some tips about life. On this Mother's Day, one early one is "My Mom's Tips for Being Safe "NOT Shaking", super for celebrating his mom. One theme throughout the book is teasing others, enough for a lifetime of worry. Jordan shows his advice in "Samira's Guide to Insulting People (And Having Them Stay Your Friend)." It may be something for all ages to understand. Teachers on the trip are vulnerable, too. You may find yourself remembering if you've taken kids on trips, or if you had some sad times in eighth grade. Number three, hoping not the last, and perhaps we'll see these wonderful and thoughtful kids in high school? Thanks for another special book, Jerry Craft! I cannot understand why anyone would think this book should be banned and not read widely!

            It's a marvelous introduction and explanation of how rainforests work, what happens to fruit seeds, why animals aren't easily seen, and much, much more. Black and white artwork by Vicky White punctuates the questions that Martin Jenkins asks as readers travel one a rainforest. This time it's the ecosystem of Malaysia's Taman Negara. While traveling, gorgeous full-color, double-page spreads made me go "Wow!" and imagine the sounds of insects and birds especially. Some animals seen are ants and elephants, leopards and hornbills, gibbons, and bats. There is a small quiz at the back showing small pics of animals that may have been missed and a list of further places to learn more. If you want to start a study of this ecosystem, start with this book!

          Thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!

         There is a letter from Eoin Colfer at the beginning explaining a bit about this story and how it is a good thing to try to understand when a child is spending a long time or several long times in the hospital. Chris Judge explains that his story's illustrations come from personal family experiences with illness. All her life, young Erin saw "pictures" in the clouds (I do, too!) and called them her "cloud babies". As a young girl, she became very ill and needed to be in the hospital for a long time. The children's ward actually was fun and all the kids played together and liked Erin's "cloud babies", too. But when she returned to school, she gave them up, deciding they were too babyish. She was sad and felt as if she didn't belong to either group. And, she missed those "cloud babies". What happens next shows a plan that helped Erin, and may help others understand what it's like to feel apart. It's a loving book that shows another point of view that's good to know!

            Thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!

   Cathy Ballou Mealey tells a story in rhyme showing Roscoe the raccoon prepping a fire and toasting a marshmallow that's just right for making s-mores! Yum! However, then Grizzly Bear comes along, wanting a treat, too. Yum, again! Roscoe might grumble a bit ("Is that for me? asks Grizzly Bear.,  Roscoe shrugs, "Bon Appetit!".)  but he keeps making these camping favorites, and as two bear cubs, then Mama, show up, too, he shares. Illustrations by Ariel Landy show the emotions well as the scene becomes more crowded. Pure satisfaction at the end, maybe especially when Roscoe gets that final treat. "Toasty, creamy, sweet, and gooey. Crispy, crunchy, slightly chewy." It's simply a fun book for reading aloud, perhaps with s'mores?

    

Poetry Friday - Kindnesses Noticed

 

             It's Poetry Friday! Thanks, Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge here, for hosting with lovely wishes for mothers, and a loving haiku after her grandson was born. 

              Last week when I hosted here, I shared a poem about kindness and a second article that was a collective poem by the same author who gathered comments from teens who wanted to share their personal experiences of kindness. So, I asked those here from Poetry Friday friends to write about theirs, too. Here is our own collaboration celebrating the kindnesses we appreciate in our own lives. Our world feels like a great recipe gone wrong these recent months. I am grateful for the special moments shared. 

Thanks to Margaret Simon for permission
to share. Her sharing about this is marked with
an asterisk!
"Beautiful people...
Beautiful place...
Beautiful plants..."

Kindness In Our Lives

 

       I'm also thankful for the kindness of the strangers that rushed to help you.

 

The subway riders in DC pushing us forward on a rush hour train to help us get off at our stop (2012) or the student who pressed a penny he saved into my palm telling me that It will help me to "save the world" after a year of hearing my environmental lessons in garden club - never once did I tell the children to "save the world," or just the person who holds the door open for me at the store. All small but important occurrences in my world that gave/give me hope. 

 

       Suggesting an exercise for a person with a painful foot cramp.

 

I like to think that kindness eventually wins.

 

       When a friend buys you dinner and asks -- genuinely -- how the writing is going.

 

Each summer, I love when my neighbor stops by and surprises me with fresh lettuce and squash from his garden.

 

       Just yesterday I was struck by the smile from a stranger who held the door for me while I crossed the street. That small act stayed with me all afternoon.

 

These poems are a balm...the balm I need.

 

       Kindness is a clerk at Lowe's loading bags of soil into the trunk of her own car to deliver to your school for the butterfly garden. *Kindness is the girl handing you a colorful picture of flowers, a multi-folded notebook page with a poem about kindness, and you don't even teach her. She just notices you in the carpool line and wants to make you smile again. 

 

When my next-door neighbor comes by with treats to celebrate her holidays. (I love being included in celebrating, even though I am unfamiliar with her holidays.) 

 

       Kindness is the generosity of fellow writers who help you lift your work to the next level.

 

Kindness is the friend who sends a poem, a podcast, an article, 
simply saying, "You'll love this," or "This made me think of you."

 

       I'm thankful for all the kindness that surrounded you in the aftermath of that accident. 

 

Out of this unfortunate incident, you've chosen to focus on the positive by sharing Lameris's initial poem, and then the collaborative one, a much-needed reminder of the power of small gestures towards our fellow human beings. 

 

       Today is kindness day at our end-of-school countdown.

 

When I ask someone to pull up their mask to keep me safe, and they're confused but do it anyway-- because they don't want me to be afraid, because they respect my right to live, because it costs them nothing but means everything to me

 

       I've been thinking about how complete I feel when I walk by the little free library in the touristy part of town and see that someone has filled it up with lovely volumes. 

 

When I mentioned our car problems, our daughter whose life is chaotically busy asked if we needed rides anywhere today. Also, when another person at the gym and I both go toward the same machine and then we both gesture to each other to go first. :>)

 

        Linda, kindness is you sharing these collaborative poems of kindness. It is kind of you to ask us to write a kindness that happened to us. Kindness is Michelle leaving a link so others could read the rest of the first poem you posted in case we couldn't use your link. Our oldest daughter is on a well-deserved beach vacation with her boyfriend and two other friends. Kindness is my daughter taking time to take video and photos of the ocean waves crashing and sharing them with me because she knows how much I love to see and hear ocean waves. Kindness is my cat purring while patiently waiting for me.

 

It's Monday - Books Loved

     

    Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!

     Here are some great and varied books I've read this past week, some brand new, one older one.

  

       For those of us who have not experienced living in a new country with a new language, Kelly Yang offers a story in which readers "finally see" how it is. Lina Gao steps off the plane in LA, her first time in America and the first time seeing her parents and little sister in five years! Even the beginning scene shows how challenging it's going to be when she's thirsty and stops to buy some water and is asked what kind! She's been living with her dear grandmother in Beijing and has been called "left behind girl" in school. Now, with her family, in a new school, she's laughed at because of her halting English. Through help from teachers, two new special friends, and seeing the grit of her parents who are still struggling to "make it". Yang manages to show the many layers and hidden challenges and hurts in every one of the characters, including Lina who shows that opening a "sliding door" to see the hidden parts of others' lives show us how to "see" everyone. A part about banning books also reveals the varied opinions and an important reason to read this book! There is much to love about and learn in Finally Seen!

       Beautiful and loving words and illustrations that we are all alike, with beating hearts, shared across the world. Happy or sad, we "are". My favorite words: "And then the sun shines us into a brand new day". Julie Fogliano and Catia Chen have created a message that feels like a hug against the darkness. It is wonderful!

       For every April's beginning and all the other parts of the year, Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido with Melissa Sweet create a fabulous book of "instructions" for poem writing. If you want inspiration instead of didactic 'how-tos', reading this offers plenty of it. I read the words, looked long at the pages of Melissa's collages, then started it all over again. Like "How to Read A Book", they've given us the most wonderful "how-to's". Wishing I was still in the classroom but I'll be sure to share with others as much as I can!

Poetry Friday is Here! Welcome!

 

Welcome to the first May #PoetryFriday

And, Happy Cinco de Mayo!

photo from Vecteezy

published in 2019

       I've been reading this book on and off for months. I read a few poems and then move to other poetry books I have. I put stickies on the pages of poems I especially love. Recently, while trying to choose what to do for today, I found one of my favorite poems, "Small Kindnesses" by Danusha Laméris, in the New York Times. Note that this poem was published in the Times in September of 2019, only a few months before March, the US month of lockdown.

You can read the beginning here:

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

                                    and the rest here.

        In that year of 2019, it seems that even then, there was need for all of us to be kind. My car was hit recently by a driver who ran a stop sign, in a rather quiet neighborhood. More than one driver slowed and offered help. Though my son-in-law came fairly fast, I was grateful that even strangers tried to give me comfort.

       And then, in April of 2022,  the times posted still another article saying this: "After more than 1,300 teenagers told us about the small kindnesses they appreciate, the poet Danusha Laméris wove their answers into verse."  You can read that collaborative poem here. 

           Here are a few of the beginning lines:

"Kindness is neighbors saying “Buenos Dias”

It’s the man in the red shirt helping the woman in the floral blouse cross the street. 

It’s the way my heart sings when I’m smiling at a baby, and their mom notices and lifts up the baby’s sweet little hand and waves it at me.

A friend patiently waiting as you quickly tie your loose shoelaces, while everyone continues walking.

A slight buzz in your jean pockets indicating messages from friends appearing out of the blue, questioning how you might be feeling that day, written in text abbreviations, the shared teenage experience.

Getting woken up at my bus stop."

           As you've already seen from my sharing up above, in what seems like such troubled times, even though we have made it through most of the Pandemic, I thought it would be nice for us to create our own "kindness" collaboration. It was a huge pleasure to create the Progressive poem created first by Irene Latham, then now managed by Margaret Simon. Let's do it again, with non-fiction "small kindnesses".

        If you leave something you notice in your special world, I will collect them and share next week.

          We know how much poetry helps us all in all kinds of ways! I hope you enjoy the words that Danusha Laméris has brought to us today. 

                            

HAPPY MAY!

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It's Monday - Sharing Recent Favorites

    

    Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!

     Sorry that I've not been here for a few weeks. April's Poetry Month writing a daily poem/post has taken a lot of time, then last Monday a driver ran a 4-way stop and hit my car as I drove through. I was nearly through so I am really okay, but the right-rear bumper into the back is not! Now I'm driving a rental and had quite a lot of paperwork and conversations during the week. Everything is covered as that other driver was at fault. Whew!

       So, I'm sharing the numerous picture books I've reviewed on Goodreads with a brief overview and the link to my longer review. I still haven't finished a long chapter book yet, except for one adult book but soon! I'm looking forward to your shared posts, have missed them!

Thanks to Candlewick Press for the first four!

A family tradition is to plant a tree for each generation. Now it's Eve's turn. Link

At the same hour, all over the world, things are happening. Included are dangers
to the environment. Gorgeous and full of good information! Link

This tree, over time. Fascinating and detailed time-lapse! Link

Searching for Waldo and more, page by page.
It's a game for one or with a friend! Link

Books from my library

Intriguing history of the ancient codexes,
how "books" have been written far longer
than we imagine.  Link