Remembering Karla Kuskin

It is with great sadness that I share the news of poet Karla Kuskin’s death last week. She was the first major poet whose work I encountered when I was a teacher and graduate student in the 1970’s. I met her and appreciated her smart, clever wit and way with words. She showed me that poetry for kids could be funny, yes, but even more. And now I find that so many people don’t know her work—as with many of the earlier “greats”-- and that’s a shame. One of my favorite poetry collections for kids (of all time!) is Dogs and Dragons, Trees and Dreams which you can buy “used” for a penny. You’ll find “Bugs” there, as well as “Lewis has a trumpet” and “Write about a radish”—all with short notes from Kuskin about how each poem came to be. And one of my very favorite poems is from another Kuskin collection, Near the Window Tree, which conversely is available for $150 on Amazon! It’s 35 years old now, but this poem is perfectly timeless, don’t you think?

Three wishes
Three.
The first
A tree.
Dark bark
Green leaves
Under a bit of blue
A canopy

To glimpse sky through
To watch sun sift through
To catch light rain
Upon the leaves
And let it fall again.
A place to put my eye
Beyond the window frame.


Wish two:
A chair
Not hard or high
One that fits comfortably
Set by the window tree
An island in the room
For me
My own
Place to sit and be
Alone


My tree
There.
Here my chair.
Me.
Rain, sky, sun
All my wishes
All the things I need
But one
Wish three:
A book to read.

by Karla Kuskin
from: Near the Window Tree, Harper and Row, 1975.

Doesn’t it have a delicious rhythm and structure? And doesn’t it capture a wonderful reading moment? And isn’t that echo of three magical wishes absolutely perfect?

One of my favorite quotes about teaching poetry is a Kuskin gem: “Instead of building a fence of formality around poetry, I want to emphasize its accessibility, the sound, rhythm, humor, the inherent simplicity. Poetry can be as natural and effective a form of self-expression as singing or shouting.” This is almost a “mission statement” for my own work in poetry.

And of course, you may also know that Kuskin was an artist and illustrator and created the unique seal for the National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry Award.



Here’s an excerpt from my entry on Karla Kuskin in Poetry People, as a bit of background bio:

Karla Kuskin was born on July 17, 1932, in New York City. Encouraged by her parents and teachers, Kuskin began writing poetry as a young girl. She attended Antioch College and earned a bachelor’s of fine arts degree from Yale University. She is married and has two grown children who are photographers.

Karla Kuskin’s first book developed from her senior thesis. Roar and More, a children’s book she wrote and designed, was published in 1956, in a slightly altered form. Kuskin has gone on to become a prolific writer and illustrator of over fifty works of children’s poetry, storybooks in verse, easy readers, and even nonfiction. Her many awards include American Institute of Graphic Arts Book Show awards, American Library Association Notables, International Reading Association Children’s Choice distinctions, a National Book Award nomination, and the National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children award given for a poet’s entire body of work.

Karla Kuskin’s pictures and poetry are brimming over with the experiences of children growing up in a big city. For a wonderful compilation of poems from several previous works as well as new poems, look for Moon, Have You Met My Mother? The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin (HarperCollins 2003)…. Kuskin shares further insights in her autobiographical picture book, Thoughts, Pictures, and Words (Richard C. Owen 1995).

Many of Kuskin’s poems have a strong voice or distinctive structure that lends itself to being read aloud and performing chorally. For example, try “The Question” (Dogs And Dragons), a poem that poses multiple answers to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Different groups or individual children can each pipe in with a different answer from the poem, “I think I'd like to be the sky,” “Or maybe I will stay a child," etc. Kuskin also has written many poems for children that incorporate a linear format that lends itself to line-around reading. For example, look for “Rules” (Dogs and Dragons), a listing of “rules” such as “Do not jump on ancient uncles” that children will find hilarious. And of course they may want to generate their own list of crazy rules to follow.

Finally, here’s a link to Karla Kuskin's obituary in the New York Times.

I hope there’s a run on her work in every library and bookstore.

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Image credit: ncte.org; abrushwithcolor.blogspot.com; ninacorvo.wordpress.com;bestwindowtreatments.com;countryliving.com;dangerous-minds.net

Wild Animals from Britain

One of my favorite things about blogging has been the opportunity to connect with fellow poetry lovers and poets so easily. (Thanks, readers!) Recently, this has been particularly true on an international scale—as I “meet” people who live in other countries from Canada to New Zealand and beyond.

Graham Denton is one wonderful example. I have really come to appreciate this poet and anthologist’s work as well as his enthusiasm for young people and their poetry. I’ve just read his latest book, Wild! Rhymes That Roar, co-edited with poet James Carter, published this spring. It’s a fun, handy paperback anthology of animal poems by a great variety of British poets (and at least 2 Americans!) who are probably household names across the ocean. (You know how I enjoy discovering new poets and poets-new-to-me!)

The poets in this anthology include editors James Carter and Graham Denton as well as June Crebbin, Gerard Benson, Judith Nicholls, Joan Poulson, Marian Swinger, Libby Houston, Sue Cowling, Eric Finney, Tony Mitton, Pie Corbett, Robert Scotellaro, Coral Rumble, Nick Toczek, Ann Bonner, Moira Andrew, David Harmer, Patricia Leighton, Roger Stevens, Mary Green, Gina Douthwaite, Jan Dean, Celia Gentles, Cynthia Rider, Mike Johnson, Matt Simpson, Clare Bevan, John Rice, Carol Coiffait, Kate Williams, Wes Magee, Jean Kenward, and our very own Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Jack Prelutsky.

There are about 60 poems in 6 categories, including:

• Green Things
• Minibeasts
• Amazing Mammals
• Winged Things
• Wild ‘n’ Wet
• Reptiles and Amphibians

The poetry runs the gamut from silly to serious in short, descriptive rhymes that are ideal for reading aloud. There’s even a nice variety of forms including several concrete or shape poems, LOTS of haiku, and PLENTY of rhyming poems. I also enjoyed the Britishisms sprinkled throughout the poetry like “colour,” “pyjamas,” and “Mum” as well as references to “hedgerows” and less familiar trees and such. I think kids will have fun encountering these bits in the poem’s contexts, too.

The animals depicted also reflect appealing diversity from the exotic eel, oyster, axolotl, lobster, crocodile, komodo dragon to the more typical bear, monkey, elephant, bee, mosquito, cockroach, crow, and spider. Playful pen and ink sketches accompany some of the poems, but kids will certainly enjoy researching more images and information about many of these animals—and drawing their own pictures to go with the poems. With a rockin’ hamster (or guinea pig?) on a psychedelic red-yellow-blue starburst cover, it has immediate visual appeal that is matched by the potpourri of poetry inside. Here’s just one sampling from poet and co-anthologist, Graham Denton himself.

Mynah Problems
by Graham Denton

The mynah bird
has quite a gimmick-
you’ll find that there’s
no finer mimic.
I’ve heard, if taught,
one of these birds
can learn up to
a hundred words.
But, as it mocks the
things it hears,
be careful what goes
in its ears;
a mynah’s quick
to pick up speech
you likely didn’t
mean to teach,
which they then go
about repeating…
and make you wish they’d
stick to tweeting.

Carter, James and Denton, Graham. 2009. Wild! Rhymes That Roar. Ill. by Jane Eccles. London: Macmillan, p. 52.

Image credit: www.jamescarterpoet.co.uk

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Stampede to School Poetry

I’m a big, big fan of poetry about school. I’ve found that the topic is nearly irresistible to kids and that makes sense, since school is the “workplace” of childhood and they spend most of their waking hours there. So, I’m happy to announce there is a wonderful new addition to the school poetry oeuvre, Laura Purdie Salas’s Stampede, Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School, illustrated by Steven Salerno.

This is a large, riotous picture book collection of 18 poems, most appearing on vibrant double-page spreads with spot-on emotional truths for young children—such as the fear of getting lost, feeling too ugly for school pictures, too scared to answer questions, too angry for words, or being embarrassed in front of the class. There are also several energetic and playful poems that take us to the playground, the cafeteria, the jungle gym, the mud puddle, and home. It’s a satisfying whole worth reading and rereading aloud and LOUD.

Added to all this is the unique wrinkle that Salas brings to personifying the kid characters in each poem. Each is given an animal persona, as child-bees swarm, child-hogs stomp in mud, child-ducklings stay in line, and child-elephants stampede away. So clever and apt! Steven Salerno’s exuberant colors and caricatures take these characters and provide dynamic energy and humor.

Our very youngest listeners will enjoy guessing the animal and hearing the poem; while older readers will certainly want to create more kid caricatures incorporating animal attributes alongside child activities. A running gazelle-child? An ambling, book-absorbed snail-child? A distractible moth-child? This clever juxtaposition of child behaviors and animal attributes is a thoroughly engaging premise in every poem and a terrific springboard for drawing, pantomiming, word-coining, and more poetry writing.

Here’s my favorite since it captures a recurring dream that I have (and I think I share with many others).

New Mouse
by Laura Purdie Salas

Go left, then right.
Wrong turns, dead ends.
Can’t find my class.
I’ve got no friends.

Each hallway is
a hallway clone.
Can’t find my way
around alone.

A thousand halls,
a thousand ways,
I’m lost inside
this new-school maze.

Salas, Laura Purdie. 2009. Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School! Ill. by Steven Salerno. New York: Clarion, p. 4-5.

Isn’t that combination of mouse in a maze with feeling lost in a new school just perfect? Every way you turn, there’s an unfamiliar door or hallway and you feel like a helpless mouse lost in a maze! This one works with echo reading, where kids repeat each line, as you read each line, one at a time. Try accelerating the pace as you move toward the end of the poem for added frantic effect!

Salas experiments with a variety of forms and rhythms, ALL strong on regular rhyme schemes, although with creative word placements. She even includes a rhyming acrostic poem (D U C K L I N G S) that kids will enjoy and will enjoy imitating. Each poem begs for a dynamic read aloud and is ideal for choral reading in various groupings. Read them through once and I’m sure kids will suggest their own performance strategies. The poems are so rich in rhyme and rhythm, as well as visual and kinesthetic details, that performing them will happen naturally!

I’ve featured school poems and lists of school poetry books before (so feel free to search previous postings via the “school” label), and I think this is a fresh and unique addition to that body of work. Laura also held a virtual launch party for Stampede on Facebook-- which was a first for me-- and still has info there, FYI. And just to whet your appetite: Laura has written a totally wonderful new, unpublished school poem that will appear alongside my “Everyday Poetry” column in Book Links in September. Thank you, Laura!

Image credit: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian

Dinothesaurus is getting reviewed everywhere (4 stars, so far!) because… well, because it’s by Douglas Florian and because IT’S ABOUT DINOSAURS! But it also happens to be truly terrific. First of all, the whole idea of poetry about dinosaur NAMES is so dead-on perfect (hurray Mike Shoulders!). Even kids who are not dinosaur fanatics, love the long, crazy, complicated names for dinosaurs. So, we end up with a great book about dinosaurs, as well as a fun book of wordplay poetry. (Even the bookflap blurb is a dinosaur poem!)

You learn about 18 different dinosaurs in 18 double-page spreads because Florian is so gifted at injecting facts into his fun and pun-filled poems, including a pronunciation guide for each dinosaur name, along with the name’s meaning. And there are unexpected dino-choices like the troodon, minim, and micropachycephalosaurus—see what I mean about those tongue-pleasing names? Opening and closing poems provide bookend context about dinosaur eras and possible causes for their demise.

One of my favorite components is the backmatter in this book, including the “Glossarysaurus” with an additional expository paragraph to accompany each poem, an annotated list of “Dinosaur Museums and Fossil Sites” and a “Selected Bibliography and Further Reading” list. These are usually features of a nonfiction book, so I am tickled to see these features in a (fact-filled) poetry book.

Florian’s poems are so rhythmic and regular that they are perfect for performing chorally with various groupings of kids. Here’s one example that is fun for echo reading. YOU read the first line, the kids echo the line, you read the next, they echo, line-by-line—an excellent strategy to use with young kids, non-readers, and English learners. Try it. It almost sounds like a chant or a yell for the playground.

Stegosaurus
steg-oh-SAW-rus (roof lizard)
by Douglas Florian

Ste-go-SAUR-us
Her-bi-VOR-ous
Dined on plants inside the forest.
Bony plates grew on its back,
Perhaps to guard it from attack.
Or to help identify
A Stegosaurus girl or guy.
Its brain was smaller than a plum.
Stegosaurus was quite DUMB.

Florian, Douglas. 2009. Dinothesaurus. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 5.

And of course with Douglas Florian we get a double whammy with art that is distinctive and stands on its own (two or four) feet! (My “Everyday Poetry” column for Book Links magazine in July is about poets who are artists, namely DF!) He employs a wonderful variety of media, including watercolor, crayon, cut paper collage, and rubber stamps (and I am a rubber stamp FREAK, so I love that!). This combination of materials creates layered, textured illustrations that bear poring over for fun and tiny details. Kids may enjoy trying their own dino-collages to match.

For more details, check Florian’s own awesome blog, FlorianCafe.

Image credit: www.simonandschuster.net

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

More Fun with Jon Agee

Do you love goofy tongue twisters, camp songs, and puns? I do! And so does Jon Agee, author of several picture books and wordplay books on palindromes, anagrams, spoonerisms, and more. He has now turned his attention to poetry, with Orangutan Tongs; Poems to Tangle Your Tongue, a collection of 34 poems that beg to be read aloud, sure to be accompanied by giggles and laughter.

The poem, “Two Tree Toads” begins “A three-toed tree toad tried to tie/ A two-toed tree toad’s shoe” and I was immediately reminded of Alvin Schwartz’s collection of folk rhymes, particularly “A tree toad loved a she-toad/ That lived up in a tree.” Then, I turned to “I Saw Esau on a seesaw. Esau, he saw Lee” which has echoes of Iona and Peter Opie’s folkrhyme collection, I Saw Esau, The Schoolchild’s Pocket Book (illustrated by Maurice Sendak). The two rhymes (and more) share that delicious nonsensical quality of rhymes that are fun to say (faster and faster), even if you don’t have any idea what it means! I could go on and on.

Then… I was studying the Index that Agee provides at the back of Orangutan Tongs and saw this note:

“Most of the poems in this book were inspired by classic English-language tongue twisters, which I gathered from a variety of sources, notably Alvin Schwartz’s A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues (1972).” EUREKA! I was so proud of myself! Agee has provided a menu of story rhymes that have the ring of playground chants—they seem like they’ve been around forever.

Add to this the accessibility of this collection—the font is a big, fat “primer” kind of print that is so friendly and easy to read. And each poem is set against an oversized watercolor picture with a scene of deadpan directness, the perfect foil for the nonsense poems. And now I want to make thank you notes out of this poem:

Thank You
by Jon Agee

I was thinking of thanking you,
as you can see,
I wanted to thank you
for thinking of me.
But now that I’ve thanked you,
I guess I am free
Of thinking of thanking you
thinking of me.

Agee, Jon. 2009. Orangutan Tongs; Poems to Tangle Your Tongue. New York: Disney-Hyperion, p. 43.

Isn’t that irresistible? Agee’s ear is perfectly tuned to the sing-song rhythm and quickening pace that makes such verses work. I dare you to read these silently. You can’t!

For more about folk and playground rhymes, here’s an excerpt from my book, Poetry Aloud Here:

Many children—and adults—don’t realize that the silly songs, rollicking rhymes, and nonsense games we learn in early childhood are indeed a form of literature. Folk poetry is the poetry you don’t even realize is poetry. Rhymes on the playground like "Cinderella dressed in yellow" have no known author and yet are familiar to many generations of children. These rhyming verses can also be included in our poetry collections. Books of riddles, chants, tongue twisters, jumprope rhymes, finger plays, handclapping games, autograph sayings and more often contain poetry and verse. What’s more, children are often intrigued to find in print the verses they have heard and known only orally and only in the domain outside of school—at home and at play.

Alvin Schwartz’s collection of uniquely American verse, And the Green Grass Grew All Around (1992) is one of my favorites and has so many wonderful examples that children will enjoy. You may be surprised, for example, to discover that there are second and third verses to poems you knew only one verse of as a child. For additional examples, look for Iona and Peter Opie’s I saw Esau: The Schoolchild’s Pocketbook (1992) or Virginia Tashjian’s Juba This and Juba That (1969). Authors and collaborators Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson have also created several collections of folk poetry worth knowing about such as Anna Banana: 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes (1989). And Judy Sierra has gathered a gem with Schoolyard Rhymes: Kids' Own Rhymes for Rope Skipping, Hand Clapping, Ball Bouncing, and Just Plain Fun (2005).

Several comprehensive collections of folk poetry are available and very appealing to young audiences of all ages. This medium helps validate children’s experiences, link oral and written modes of expression, and invite active, even physical participation (Vardell & Jacko, 2005). Children can collect other examples on audio or videotape and explore neighborhood, cultural, and linguistic variations (Vardell, Hadaway & Young, 2002). They can translate their English favorites into other languages represented in their community. Older children may enjoy exploring the historical roots of childhood folklore or writing down new and unfamiliar examples.

EXTRA BONUS: Listen to the song based on the title poem, "Orangutan Tongs" (via Jon’s Web site).

Image credit:www.juniorlibraryguild.com

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Time to Countdown to Summer

I am already starting to think about summer and daydream about what I want to do (and not do!). It’s the perfect moment to highlight a new book coming from the always wonderful J. Patrick Lewis: Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year due out this fall.

This potpourri of poetry runs the gamut from serious to silly, from thoughtful to topical, for every conceivable occasion and just for fun. There are 180 poems and I love how they are numbered beginning with #180 and counting down to #1 (“School’s Out!”) with a big black dot encircling each number on every page. Kids will love this actual counting down of the school year (and most school years are about 180 days long). I didn’t actually map each poem day to the corresponding day/month (Poem #180 to Sept. 5, for example), since the start of school varies across the country. However, as a former classroom teacher, it seemed to me that the poems jived nicely with holiday and seasonal happenings across the calendar year. That is such a fun construct. Go, Pat!

The poems themselves also represent an amazing menu—which is key if you are sharing a poem every day BY THE SAME POET. If anyone can pull off this breadth and depth, it’s our buddy Pat. Not only does he tackle a plethora of topics, but the poetic forms are extremely varied, too—the perfect springboard for mini poetry lessons that grow organically out of poem sharing. Riddles, limericks, haiku, acrostics, rhyming narratives, free verse, list poems, rebus poems, concrete poetry, and on and on.

You know how I collect poems about libraries and librarians and I hit the jackpot here with FOUR, count ‘em, four wonderful libro-poems. (And there are even more book-related poems than these.) Save them all for next year’s National Library Week.

#174 The Librarian
#116 Library Fine
#89 New York Public Library
#66 The Hippopotabus (A Book-Boat)

Here’s just a sample to whet your appetite:

#66 The Hippopotabus
(A Book-Boat)
by J. Patrick Lewis

A bookmobile, extremely large,
A floating minibus
That travels like a steaming barge
Of hippopotamus,

Holds fables, facts, tiptoe tall tales,
Bookshelves of derring-do,
And poetry that never fails
To hippnotize the crew.

Turn any page. First port of call
On RIVER LONGAGO!
“We’ve reached,” says Book-Boat’s Admiral,
“The town of MAYBESO,

“Whose lovely tribe, the BRARIANS,
Keepers of verbs and nouns,
Will introduce you to WORDGRRRS,
The literary hounds.

“So this trip promises to be
Wordplayfularious,
A bonbon bon voyage to sea
By Hippopotabus!”

Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year. Ill. by Ethan Long. New York: Little, Brown.

I love the idea of a BOAT of books and I think kids would have fun envisioning this, drawing it, and perhaps constructing one! It also reminds me of Margriet Ruur’s book, My Librarian is a Camel (Boyds Mills Press, 2005), a terrific nonfiction picture book about all kinds of unorthodox libraries all around the world (including actual book boats). The wordplay (“wordplayfulariousness”) in this poem is also fun and kids will enjoy picking up on that and coining their own words like “the town of MAYBESO.”

In fact, the learning and activity connections for these poems just bubble up with a multitude of possibilities. For example, #98 “A Monthly Calendar” is a visual way to represent all the months poetically and could be a great bulletin board or door sign. Or the poems could serve as an addition to the morning announcements made at many schools every day. Start reading the poems out loud every day and the kids will have plenty of ideas of their own.

Finally, let me not neglect to mention the LOOK of the book. Illustrator Ethan Long has provided pen and ink cartoons for every single page and it gives the book visual verve and energy and makes it even more browsable. The bug-eyed characters and mini-comic-stories move across the bottom third or quarter of each page (and beyond) in appealing ways that complement the poems perfectly. I know the book will be published in hardback (which is great for a longer shelf life), but I loved the flippable newsprint paper format of my ARC which felt so handy, friendly, and bendable.

I’ve been working on my own long-term poem-a-day project, so I know what a challenge it is to create this kind of comprehensive anthology. Lee Bennett Hopkins’ has a terrific companion resource, Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More (Greenwillow, 2005), along with many, many other holiday and school topic-based collections that teachers (especially) will also find helpful. These could form the perfect framework for regular poem sharing—and then you can build upon this by seeking even more poetry books to link with these, day by day.

Posting (not poem) copyright Sylvia M. Vardell 2009

Silly Dilly Sports Songs by Alan Katz

While I’m featuring funny poetry, I have to mention the next book in Alan Katz’s series of “silly dilly” song-poems: Going, Going, Gone!: And Other Silly Dilly Sports Songs. This collection of sports-themed songs joins his previous works, also illustrated with hilarious overstatement by David Catrow.

• Katz, Alan. 2001. Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs. New York: McElderry.
• Katz, Alan. 2003. I’m Still Here in the Bathtub; Brand New Silly Dilly Songs. New York: McElderry.
• Katz, Alan. 2005. Where Did They Hide My Presents? Silly Dilly Christmas Songs. New York: McElderry.
• Katz, Alan. 2006. Are You Quite Polite; Silly Dilly Manners Songs. New York: McElderry.
• Katz, Alan. 2008. On Top of the Potty: And Other Get-Up-and-Go Songs. New York: McElderry.
• Katz, Alan. 2008. Smelly Locker; Silly Dilly School Songs. New York: Simon & Schuster.

This has evolved into quite a library of song-poem-parodies that are half camp song and half vaudevillian schtick and all illustrated in hypercolorful cartoons and caricatures. Of course they all BEG to be SUNG, not just read aloud, and Katz identifies which song tune to use for each poem-song. Be brave and lead the kids in singing and TAPING them, to make your own audio or podcast. (But don’t post without permission from the publisher please.)

You’ll find 14 songs showcasing a variety of sports such as baseball, fishing, (miniature) golfing, ice skating, tennis, cycling, football, swimming, bowling, archery, and soccer. Details of the sport are noted alongside all the things that can go wrong, too. And I find it interesting the friendships and family relationships usually form the backdrop for each song, making it fun to sing and perform these in groups of kids or family members. Finally, each poem ends in a surprise or a twist that is sure to generate laughter.

Here’s just one example, the “kick-off” first poem in the book, “On Top of the Bleachers” (sung to the tune “On Top of Old Smokey”).

“On Top of the Bleachers”
(sung to the tune “On Top of Old Smokey”)
by Alan Katz

On top of the bleachers,
that’s where we just sat.
Dad bought me a pennant,
a scorecard, and hat.

He got me some peanuts,
a soda, and chips,
a ballplayer puppet
that swings as he flips.

Next I got a helmet,
a bat, and a glove,
a giant foam finger
the crowd doesn’t love.

Dad purchased a hot dog,
a cheese-filled dough puff,
an official backpack
to carry my stuff.

Twelve trips to the bathroom
Dad had to endure.
There mighta been a ball game…
though I’m not really sure.

Katz, Alan. 2009. Going, Going, Gone!: And Other Silly Dilly Sports Songs. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Challenge creative kids to compose their own song-poems about other favorite sports and record or perform them. Look for more fun and funny sports poems in Jack Prelutsky’s Good Sports; Rhymes About Running, Jumping, Throwing, and More (Knopf, 2007).

Image credit: alankatzbooks.com

Good Karma; What’s the Weather Inside?

Karma Wilson is the author of some 28 picture books, featuring her recurring “Bear” and “Calico” (cat) characters, but she branches out with a new collection of some 100+ poems in the hilarious anthology, What’s the Weather Inside? With perfectly matched pen and ink drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt, and a “Postcard” font that suggests handwritten poems, this collection evokes Shel Silverstein in its look, sound, and feel. Wilson’s collection is big on humor, and kids are sure to love the rollicking rhymes that hit on many of their favorite topics such as pets, siblings, and school. (An index of titles and an index of first lines are also included, which is always nice.) She also plays with point of view, surprise endings, pairing poems, and my favorite, fairy tale and Mother Goose parodies.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel
by Karma Wilson

Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
don’t be a dope.
Cut off your hair
and make your own rope.

Wilson, Karma. 2009. What's the Weather Inside? New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 116.

Other “riffs” include “Miss Muffet’s Revenge,” “The Beast and the Beauty,” “Golden Eggs,” and “Mary Had an Appetite.” Kids will love creating their own parody of a favorite rhyme, tale, or song. Post theirs alongside a version of the original. And on Karma’s Web site, kids can “take a favorite poem and rewrite it sillier” and send it to Karma and possibly get it posted on her Web site.

The poems in What’s the Weather Inside? also lend themselves beautifully to being read aloud. Start with one about teachers, “Red-Letter Day.” Then, invite students to join in on poems with repeated lines like “She’s my sister and I missed her” in “What I Missed” or “My parents want to sit down” from “Sit-Downs.” Even young children who can’t read independently yet (or children learning English as a new language) can join in on a repeated word or phrase while the adult leader reads the rest.

Older students can plan with a partner and take turns reading paired poems or poems for two voices such as these:
“What Your Dog Might Be Thinking” and “What Your Cat Might Be Thinking” or
“A List of Lovely Words” and “A List of Ugly Words.”

FYI: This is one of several poetry books that Simon & Schuster is publishing this spring for which I wrote a downloadable Poetry Guide available online here. Scroll down halfway and you’ll find the “Poetry Guide” link. Check it out!

Image credit: karmawilson.com

TLA poet J. Patrick Lewis: The Underwear Salesman

I’ve been trying to get J. Patrick Lewis to Texas and the TLA conference for years and it finally happened! Pat was on our fantastic poetry panel on Thursday and did a terrific job sharing his amazing range of poetry. He was funny, ironic, informative, inviting. He read from several of his FIVE new books, as well as from upcoming collections like the hysterical epitaph poem anthology he’s doing with Jane Yolen.

Today I’d like to feature one of his new 2009 poetry collections, sure to be a kid-pleaser: The Underwear Salesman, the flipside to Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s book, Steady Hands, that I wrote about yesterday. You gotta love a poetry book with “underwear” in the title and I counted 48 separate profession poems in Pat’s new underwear book (plus an opening and closing poem) that range from showcasing the “Paleontologist” and “Gymnast” to the “Cuckoo-Clock Repairman” and “Bubble Bath Tester.”

The poetic forms are also very varied and skip and hop from the extremely clever and punny to the quietly thoughtful and poignant—all with a natural sweep and swing. The illustrations by Serge Bloch are a fun complement with a mix of loose and jangly cartoons sketches blended with textured and googly-eyed collages. Is there a librarian poem? Of course there is! (And the publishers created a lovely bookmark for the TLA conference featuring this poem—thanks, Michelle!)

Librarian
by J. Patrick Lewis

No one has more fun than I!
I’ve met Harriet the Spy,
Ferdinand the Bull, and Pooh.
(Eeyore says, “How do you do?”)

Mole and Badger, Toad and Rat
Come to dine and stay to chat.
With the Little Prince in hand,
Alice in her Wonderland,

Call of the Wild (a pedig-read),
What else could anybody need?

Fables, folktales, nonsense verse
I carry home in my big purse.
Have as much fun by yourself!
Take a book down from the shelf.

Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. The Underwear Salesman: And Other Jobs for Better or Verse. Ill. by Serge Bloch. New York: Simon & Schuster/Atheneum.

This is one of several poetry books that Simon & Schuster is publishing this spring and I was privileged to create a downloadable Poetry Guide for these spring titles that is available online here. Scroll down halfway and you’ll find the “Poetry Guide” link. There’s also a terrific downloadable “Celebrate Poetry” brochure with fun poet commentary. I've included several activities to accompany this fun underwear (funderwear?) book. Check it out!

Image credit: books.simonandschuster.ca

Happy birthday, Kenn (My Hippo Has the Hiccups) Nesbitt

Poet Kenn Nesbitt is celebrating his birthday today, as well as the imminent release of what is sure to be a hit, My Hippo Has the Hiccups, a new poetry book-plus-audio-CD produced by Sourcebooks. This Silverstein-Prelutsky-influenced collection of 120 poems caters to kids’ voracious appetites for humorous story poems, with plenty of silly pet poems, fairy tale parodies (another Cinderella poem for my collection!), and funny school poems, many topics with strong kid appeal. Nesbitt relies heavily on formulaic rhyming quatrains that kids will quickly chime in on—especially after listening to the CD performed by Nesbitt himself.

Once again, the audio is one of my favorite components and I’m so glad to see Sourcebooks continue to offer poetry for kids in audio form. Nesbitt is a strong performer of his own works, with a strong, clear delivery and pacing that is just right for the poem and the audience. The pause between tracks is also helpful for listeners and Nesbitt manages to make each track distinctive, using a variety of voicing and sound effects. Even without the text in front of her/him, the young reader can easily follow the poem—and that’s not as easy as it sounds.

There are 39 (out of the 120) poems available on the CD including most of the best of the collection, IMO, like “I Played a Game” which begs for kid pantomime or movement to accompany the audio, “(I’m Always in Parentheses)” which actually gives voice to the ignoble parentheses, and “Pet Shopping” with a lively backdrop of animal noises, to name a few. Kids will surely want to plug the CD in the car and join in—and I think the CD will hold up to repeated listening.

My favorite poems are probably those that diverge from the ever-present rhyming pattern (like the list format of “The Contents of My Desk” below) or incorporate clever wordplay (like “Anna Graham” = anagram) or punctuation-play (like “Hap-the-Happy-Hyphenator”). I hope Nesbitt will venture further into this inventive territory in the future.

The Contents of My Desk
by Kenn Nesbitt

A nail.
A nickel.
A snail.
A pickle.
A twisted-up slinky.
A ring for my pinky.
A blackened banana.
A love note from Hannah.
My doodles of rockets.
The lint from my pockets.
A fork-like utensil.
But sorry…
no pencil.

p. 22

[Wouldn’t it be fun to gather a few of these objects mentioned in the poem and put them in a box, set the box on a table in front of the kids, and then take each object out as you refer to it in reading the poem aloud? Poem props! Or challenge kids to create a comic strip or storyboard, with a drawing for each line of the poem, using each line as a caption or speech bubble.]

My Hippo Has the Hiccups is illustrated with black and white cartoon sketches by artist and animator Ethan Long. They have just the right touch of zany looseness to suit the poems and engage kid readers—and aspiring cartoonists.

Kenn Nesbitt’s web site, Poetry4Kids is one of the most popular and visited sites for kids on poetry, offering a multitude of resources and opportunities for kids to interact. He clearly has a heart for kids and their funny bones. He writes, “I know it always makes me feel good when I read a funny poem or hear a funny song. So, in my own small way, I'm trying to do my part to help people laugh, and just maybe make the world a happier place.” Happy birthday to YOU, Kenn. Thanks for hiccupping hippos!

P.S. Congratulations, Sourcebooks: The 40th NAACP Image Awards were given out last week and Hip Hop Speaks to Children, edited by Nikki Giovanni (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky) won for Outstanding Literary Work—Poetry, the first time that a book for CHILDREN has won in this category. Congrats, Nikki and Sourcebooks! (I blogged about this anthology last Nov. 4. Love that audio, too!)

Join the Poetry Friday crew at the holly and the ivy.

Image credit: Sourebooks

New Reviews: Back to School with Rovetch, Ashman, and Elliot

In my neck of the woods, it’s time to head back to school. It’s still 98 degrees here in Texas, but for many kids, summer is already over! So, let’s take a look at three new poetry books that are kid-friendly collections with poetic forms that kids are sure to imitate. Strong on rhyme and humor, with odd or interesting illustrations, these are worth checking out.


There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat; And Other Vile Little Poems by Gerda Rovetch



This slim collection is very repetitive, with many rhymes beginning “There Was a Man” which kids will enjoy imitating and riffing on. Much in the spirit of Edward Lear, with humorous ink drawings on paper plates (paper plates!) by the poet’s daughter, Lissa Rovetch, here’s a sampling:

There was a man in Abilene
who loved a little lima bean.
He kept it in a velvet bag
and only took it out to brag.

Rovetch, Gerda. 2008. There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat; And Other Vile Little Poems. New York: Philomel.

Of course, being from Texas, this poem particularly appeals to me (since Abilene is a Texas town). But I can also see using this limerick-like quatrain form with kids, as they try their hands at creating nonsense poems. Put a lima bean in a small velvet (jewelry) bag and present it mysteriously before reading the poem aloud.


M is for Mischief; An A to Z of Naughty Children by Linda Ashman


I wrote about another new book by Linda Ashman earlier this summer (June 20), Stella, Unleashed; Notes from the Doghouse (Sterling, 2008), and amazingly Ashman has a second poetry book out this year. M is for Mischief is an ABC book that provides a poem for a child named for each letter of the alphabet. It’s illustrated by Nancy Carpenter with inventive images that are suggestive of the rambunctious Eloise. Each poem is boxed in a color square, with cartoon kids cavorting across the pages. Here’s my favorite example:


Vile Vern
by Linda Ashman

Look at Vern: he’s always venting.
Vicious temper, unrelenting.
Vern’s explosions, most volcanic,
Put his victims in a panic.

Aimed his venom at a snake.
Vexed the viper.
Vern’s mistake.


Ashman, Linda. 2008. M is for Mischief; An A to Z of Naughty Children. New York: Dutton.

There’s a long tradition of rhymes and verses about “bad” kids including X. J. Kennedy’s wonderful/horrible “Brats” collections. And of course kids may enjoy seeking out other ABC books that use first names as their structure—like A my name is Alice, Alice to Zinnia, etc.



On the Farm by David Elliott



For our very youngest poetry fans, On the Farm is a delightful collection of animal poems with a fun, modern feel. I have to admit that the wonderful woodcut and watercolor illustrations by Holly Meade completely captivate me and pump up the volume on these simple rhymes. The large scale (poems in a big font, images oversized) makes the book ideal for group sharing and reading aloud. And kids will learn the poems quickly and join in. Just try one:

The Rooster
by David Elliott

Crows and struts.
He’s got feathers!
He’s got guts!

Oh, the rooster
struts and crows.
What’s he thinking?

No one knows.

Elliott, David. 2008. On the Farm. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.

This Elliott and Meade collaboration reminds me of the large image, oversized picture books of Flora McDonnell, particularly I Love Animals (Candlewick, 1996) a perfect companion to this book. Or look for the classic Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown or Mother Goose collections of animal rhymes. And of course young children will love making animal noises and animal movements to accompany the read aloud.

For more Poetry Friday poetry, go to Big A Little A-- thanks for hosting, Kelly!

Picture credits: www.cookiemag.com;http://www.lindaashman.com/;www.textbooksrus.com

New Review: POETRY PUDDING

As the Summer Olympics begin on this auspicious date, 08/08/08, our attention is focused across the globe. I thought it might be appropriate to spend a moment on an international poem collection, Poetry Pudding, from New Zealand. I first found out about this gem from a CHILD_LIT listserv posting this spring. The Storylines Children’s Literature Trust selects an annual list of New Zealand’s notable books for children chosen by a panel of children’s literature professionals including past and present members of the Storylines management committee, all of whom have a wealth of experience and knowledge in the field of children’s literature. Many have served as judges for the New Zealand Post Book Awards (and its previous incarnations) and the LIANZA children’s book awards.

The list (launched in 1999) comprises 10 books in each of four categories – picture books, junior and young adult fiction and nonfiction. These books represent the very best books for young people published in New Zealand during the previous year (2007).

Of course I peruse every “best” list for the inclusion of poetry, thus I was so pleased to find one title in the “Young Adult Fiction” category:
Poetry Pudding: A Delicious Collection of Rhyme and Wit edited by Jenny Argante, illustrated by Debbie Tipuna, published by Reed, now Raupo Publishing

I immediately went online to get myself a copy which was a bit more challenging than I expected, of course. Eventually, I ordered it through Raupo directly and was so excited to get my very own copy from across the planet. (I LOVE seeking out poetry from countries outside the U.S., particularly when it’s in English.)

Poetry Pudding did not disappoint. Its small trim size (roughly 4.5 x 6.5 inches) is fun and handy, easy to tote and tuck into a bookbag, purse, or pocket, and it contains over 100 poems from 44 contributors from some of New Zealand’s best and most interesting poets: Cliff Fell, David Hill, Jack Ross, James Brown, Paula Green, Jessica Le Bas, James Norcliffe, and many others. In her introduction, Jenny Argante explains that her aim was to collect poems by “Kiwi poets for Kiwi kids” organized around the alphabet, A to Z, but it didn’t quite work out. She writes, “In poetry… where you start from is not as important as where you end up” (p. 11). Love that line! The selections represent an amazing range, including poems by Maori poets. I found it impossible to select just one example, so I’ll be posting my favorites over the next three days, just for fun. Here are three gems to show the contrast in tone, style, and form in this excellent anthology.

Keeping the Peace
by Lee Dowrick

Peace
is hard to keep
if you’re a lion
at heart.

You will need to know
when not to roar.

when to stay in your den,
and how
to lie quietly
beside
a tempting lamb.

p. 45


List
by Philippa Werry

eggs
cheese
margarine
frozen peas
frozen beans

bread
coffee
marmalade
jelly! toffee!
lemonade!

popcorn!
pizza!
cheerios!
pasta and
pistachios!

corn chips!
cornflakes!
pink iced buns!
chocolate! cheesecake!
bubblegum!

peaches!
cherries!
nectarines!
hokey-pokey
ice cream!

Hey, just a minute,
what’s all this?
Who’s been writing
on my shopping list???

p. 114-115


The Long-Wait Queue
by Tracey Bingham

High I.Q.
Low I.Q.
We all still queue
in the long-wait queue.

In the bus queue
the tip-top queue
the lunch queue
the chip-shop queue.

In the grocery queue
the bank queue
the library queue
the endless queue.

High I.Q.
Low I.Q.
We all still queue
in the long-wait queue…

p. 143

Argante, Jenny. Ed. 2007. Poetry Pudding; A Delicious Collection of Rhyme and Wit. Ill. by Debbie Tipuna. Auckland, NZ: Reed Publishing.

I have extensive listings of international poetry for young people in my April 30, 2007 posting. And of course the shining star in this area is Naomi Shihab Nye, who has gathered gorgeous anthologies of poetry by voices around the world, including:
This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (Four Winds Press, 1992)
The Tree is Older Than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems and Stories from Mexico (Simon & Schuster, 1995)
The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings From the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 1998) [adapted as The Flag of Childhood: Poems from the Middle East (Aladdin, 2002)]

Poetry Friday is hosted by my former student, Becky Laney, this week at Becky's Book Reviews. Go, Becky!

P.S. My apologies for being AWOL last Friday. I was being checked by the SpamBlocking police at Blogspot and finally passed muster! :-)

Picture credit: mairangibay.blogspot.com

New Review: Black Stars in a White Night Sky

Here’s a new name to watch: JonArno Lawson from Toronto. Fellow Canadian Robert Munsch said this about Lawson’s first book of poetry for young people, The Man in the Moon-Fixer’s Mask: “This highly accessible but unusual book of wordplay fun for children brings back to life the long lost oddball spirit of the best of Ogden Nash and Hillaire Belloc.” That spirit continues in Lawson’s latest, Black Stars in a White Night Sky published by Boyds Mills Press this spring. Hazel Rochman at Booklist wrote, “his uproarious collection blends slapstick, puns, parodies, and sheer absurdity with lots of wry ideas.” I agree! This collection of 100+ poems is fun to flip through and full of a range of poems from the serious to the silly. Here are two samples from that spectrum:

Are You Worried?
by JonArno Lawson

Are you worried you’re not
like everyone else?
Your worries will only worsen
when you find
that the path to conformity
is different for each person.

p. 14

He Laughed with a Laugh
by JonArno Lawson

He laughed with a laugh
that he wished was his laugh
but everyone knew it wasn’t.

When he laughed he would ask,
“Does that sound like my laugh?”
And everyone said, “It doesn’t.”

The laugh that he laughed
that wasn’t his laugh went,
“Hardy har har, guffaw!”

The laugh that he laughed
that he wished wasn’t his went,
“Hruck, sniffle-hick, hee-haw!”

p. 107

Black Stars in a White Night Sky was first published by Pedlar Press in Toronto in 2006, and received the 2007 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. I’m so glad to see it cross the border for kids in the U.S., too. Black and white illustrations by Sherwin Tija have a graphic/comic sensibility and add to the appeal of the collection to middle grade and middle school readers. And I love the “small-type notes for those with excellent eyesight” at the back of the book featuring fascinating notes on the backstories for many of the poems. For fans of X. J. Kennedy, David McCord or J. Patrick Lewis, here’s another smart poet whose language play and poetic versatility are sure to please.

Now I’m on the lookout for two other new 2008 releases by JonArno Lawson:
*Inside Out: Children’s Poets Discuss Their Work (published by Walker Books in the UK)
*Voweller's Bestiary: From Aardvark to Guineafowl (illustrated by the poet and published by Porcupine's Quill, a Canadian literary press)

More Poetry Friday fun can be found at A Year of Reading.

Picture credits: www.wordsongpoetry.com;www.canscaip.org

New Review: STELLA, UNLEASHED

Thanks to Sondra LaBrie at Kane/Miller books, I know that today, Friday, June 20th, is TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY. Who knew such a “holiday” existed? Being a dog lover, I think this is a fun, if not so practical (if we ALL took our dogs to work) idea. I love the idea of “therapy” dogs at hospitals and health care facilities and found this such a comfort a few years ago when my mom was in the hospital. And when I taught sixth grade years and YEARS ago, I desperately wanted to get a dog and my students helped me find one, so I brought him (“Luther”) to school one day. He was a HUGE hit with the kids and they loved taking care of him. It made me a big fan of classroom pets, too, by the way—a great way to develop nurturing and responsibility skills in kids.

In honor of today’s occasion, I’d like to feature a new collection of dog poetry: Stella, Unleashed; Notes from the Doghouse (Sterling, 2008). Linda Ashman has written a fun and frolicking collection of rhyming poems about a much-loved dog’s life all told from the dog’s (Stella’s) point of view. This colorful picture book collection includes 29 poems organized along seven topics from “meet my family” to “the neighborhood pack.” In the illustrations, we see one family adopting a dog from a shelter in the opening poem, “Lost & Found,” and follow their adventures and their new dog, Stella’s, along with an assortment of other dog and human characters. Stella’s poems focus on her relationship with each family member and family pet (cat, fish), as well as her favorite pastimes and pet (!) peeves.

Paul Meisel’s illustrations across single or double page spreads are delightful, singing with a primitive Norman Rockwell-style narrative pull. The font, poem placement, and use of space create a very pleasing whole worth revisiting many times. Stella, her adopted family, and her poems, all have a lot of personality, with lots of kid appeal. Here’s a sample poem from near the end of the book with a sweet message communicated in a fun way.

Someone for Each of Us
by Linda Ashman

Tall and stately.
Short and stubby.
Brindled, spotted, speckled, shaggy.
Small and perky.
Large and bulky.
Wiry, curly, droopy, saggy.

Sporty, active.
Rough and tumble.
Moody types inclined to brood.
Pampered sorts
who crave attention.
Loners who need solitude.

Humans come in many forms—
different styles, sizes, traits.
Life is sweet,
and much less lonely,
when we find our perfect mates.

From Ashman, Linda. 2008. Stella, Unleashed; Notes from the Doghouse. Ill. by Paul Meisel. New York: Sterling, p. 38-39.

A Teacher’s Guide for this book is available at the author’s Web site.

Pair Stella, Unleashed; Notes from the Doghouse with the new picture book by the fun-loving sister team, Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel, Help Me, Mr. Mutt!: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems, for more fun from the dog point of view.

My poetry-loving colleague, Elaine Magliaro, also reviewed Stella, Unleashed on her blog, Wild Rose Reader. Check it out for more insights. (Hint: we agree!)

For more Poetry Friday fun, go to Semicolon.

Picture credit: www.sterlingpublishing.com

Happy Limerick Day!

Today, May 12, is Limerick Day, in honor of the birth of Edward Lear, the man who popularized the limerick poem with his own self-illustrated collection, the Book of Nonsense (1846). Limericks for adults are often bawdy verses or songs, but limericks for children are usually just humorous or even outrageous story-poems. There are several teaching resources available on the topic of writing limericks with kids including Poetry-online and Giggle Poetry.

Here are a few, fun original limericks by master punster, J. Patrick Lewis in honor of the day. Enjoy!

Limb-ericks: Hip Verses
All by J. Patrick Lewis (used with permission)

The Skin
Now a snake who’s about to begin
Climbing out of his ugly old skin
Has the grin of a winner—
It’s “in” to be inner
And out of the outer he’s in.

The Hump
In the desert a camel was minus
A passenger, His Royal Highness.
The King loved the humps
But the bumpety-bumps
Left him down in the dumps and the dryness.

The Nose
The bat clings to the ceiling above,
Wrapped in wings like a hand in a glove,
Too afraid to expose
To his neighbors a nose
That only a mother could love.

The Neck
According to Good Gnus Reporter,
The Giraffe used to be a lot shorter
Till a bird in the trees
Said, “Get up off your knees!”
Said Giraffe, “That’s a very tall order.”

The Arm
To an Octopus luncheon for nine,
The comrades-in-arms come to dine.
But when hugging each other—
What suckers, oh brother!—
They look like a great ball of twine.

The Antler
The Moose suffers pain and distress
If a hat is hung on his headdress.
His horns were intended
For something more splendid—
But what it is no one can guess!

Note: The limericks are forthcoming in J. Patrick Lewis's Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year, Little, Brown, (Spring 2009). I can’t wait to see this book! I’ve been working on my own project matching poems to events for each day of the year, so this should be a terrific resource. A similar approach is the fantastic, Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More by Lee Bennett Hopkins (New York: Greenwillow, 2005).

For more limericks, there’s always Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense, of course, plus these gems:
Ciardi, John. 1992. The Hopeful Trout and Other Limericks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kennedy, X.J. 1997. Uncle Switch: Loony Limericks. New York: Margaret K. McElderry.

For a wonderful poem tribute to Lear himself, check out:
Lewis, J. Patrick. 1998. Boshblobberbosh; Runcible Poems for Edward Lear. Mankato: Creative Editions; San Diego: Harcourt.

Picture credit: www.dkimages.com