Poems + Picture Books (+ NY)

I had the chance to participate in the Annual Multicultural Book Fair organized by Jenice Mateo in Hastings, NY last week. What an amazing experience! The whole community turns out to buy books and hear authors speak-- all focused on building literacy, empathy, and a celebration of diversity. Janet (Wong) and I spoke to classes of students and then shared a workshop for teachers and parents on connecting picture books with poetry. 

Then I also got to spend several days exploring one of my favorite cities, New York! My husband joined me for some touring and we crammed in as many museums and plays as we could! Here are just a few highlights from the whole shebang!

Here's a glimpse of our talks and workshop:

Here are a few slides from our workshop on connecting picture books and poetry. Once again, I focused on "my" Caldecott books, showing 8 different ways to connect picture books with poetry!

Pair WOLF IN THE SNOW with poetry about snow, wolves, or kindness.

Pair CROWN with CROWNING GLORY, a whole book of poems about Black hair.

Turn a nonfiction passage (from GRAND CANYON) into a "found" poem.

And of course we had to share poems + picture book combinations linked to poems from our Poetry Friday Anthologies. Here's just one example. 

PLUS: a few poetry moments from our days as tourists in NYC. I found a poetry bookstore in Brooklyn (sadly it was not open at that moment), poem posters on the subway, readers depicted in subway mosaics, and a bit of poetry on a sewer cover too! 

Now head on over to Whispers from the Ridge where Kiesha is hosting Poetry Friday! See you there!