Florian's Friends and Foes

It's back to school time!
One of the best things about heading back to school from the kid point of view is seeing your friends again! School is very much about friends and friendship in their eyes (and sometimes about the converse: bullying and ostracism, but that's another subject). With the friendship focus in mind, I wanted to stop and share a wonderful new picture book poetry collection from Douglas Florian, a kid favorite (and mine too!). 

Have you seen Friends and Foes: Poems About Us All (Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books, 2018)?

You'll find 25 poems on many different aspects of friendship, including some of the challenging parts like jealousy, loneliness, lying, and so on-- all from the child perspective (which feels universal to me!). 

Each poem is accompanied by Florian's distinctive illustrations-- and here's the kicker-- done in colored pencils and crayons on manila paper! Don't you love that? Perfect for a back-to-school poetry collection! This one is probably my favorite poem:

And if you'd like to look for a few more poetry books about friendship, here you go:

Poetry Books about Friendship

Friends and friendship are such an important part of childhood and growing up. Many poetry books focus on this topic, including the following.

Cheng, Andrea. 2008. Where the Steps Were. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills/Wordsong.

Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. The Friendly Four. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. New York: HarperCollins. 

Grimes, Nikki. 1994. Meet Danitra Brown. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.

Grimes, Nikki. 2002. Danitra Brown Leaves Town. New York: HarperCollins.

Grimes, Nikki. 2005. Danitra Brown, Class Clown. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.

Herrick, Steven. 2008. Naked Bunyip Dancing. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills/Wordsong.

Hoberman, Mary Ann. 2000. And to Think We Thought that We’d Never be Friends. New York: Random House.  

Holbrook, Sara. 2011. Weird? (Me, Too!) Let's Be Friends. Ill. by Karen Sandstrom. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

Janeczko, Paul B. 1999. Very Best (Almost Friends): Poems of Friendship. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Levy, Debbie. 2010. The Year of Goodbyes; A True Story of Friendship, Family and Farewells. New York: Hyperion.

Quattlebaum, Mary. 2005. Winter Friends. New York: Doubleday Books for Young Readers.

Singer, Marilyn. 1996. All We Needed to Say: Poems about School from Tanya and Sophie. New York: Atheneum.  

Singer, Marilyn. 2011. Twosomes: Love Poems from the Animal Kingdom. New York: Knopf.

Soto, Gary. 2002. Fearless Fernie: Hanging out with Fernie and Me. New York: Putnam.

Soto, Gary. 2005. Worlds Apart: Fernie and Me. New York: Putnam.

Wong, Janet S. 2003. Minn and Jake. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Wong, Janet. 2008. Minn and Jake’s Almost Terrible Summer. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 

Now look for Christy's blog, Wondering and Wondering, where she is hosting our Poetry Friday fun. 

More Morning!

Please indulge me just a bit longer as I share a spontaneous video we made at the recent convention of the International Literacy Association in Austin, TX. Janet and I read aloud one excerpt from GREAT Morning: Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud and it was so fun! Here, I am reading the scripted intro and follow up for the poem and Janet reads the featured poem, "What Does a Reading Specialist Do?" by Linda Kulp Trout--perfect for our audience of reading teachers! In just one minute, the principal (or anyone) can start the day with an uplifting poem for the whole school community!

Here is the complete text for this excerpt to show you how simple (yet powerful) it can be to start the school day with a poem.

TOPIC 21: READING
DID YOU KNOW?

What is the most frequently used letter in the English language? E. What is the most frequently used word? If you guessed “the,” you’re right! We learn to read, spell, and decode about 40,000 words as we grow up. And who can help us build vocabulary and fine-tune our reading skills at school? The reading specialist—the focus of our next poem. 

FOLLOW UP

As you read in class today, think about how you are also learning to “untangle new words, discover connections, and make meaning, too.” Keep reading in school and after school every day! 

CONNECT (Teachers/librarians can extend the featured poem with this linked poem)

For a poem about how reading can be a passageway to take us far away, link with “Secret Worlds” by Margarita Engle (page 104).

POETRY PLUS

Also share this poem on Read Across America Day on March 2.

HIDDEN LANGUAGE SKILLS (pp. 139-143)

This poem also provides examples of similes.

Now, join Catherine at Reading to the Core for more Poetry Friday fun!

Reading with Pets

Today I am presenting at the conference of the International Literacy Association in Austin, Texas, with Janet (Wong), author Kathi Appelt, and librarian Amy McFadden. This time, our focus is on reading with pets-- a practice that has been around at least 20 years (in an organized way), but seems to be having a big moment once again. I'm setting the stage and sharing some key research findings about the benefits of pairing children and therapy dogs. Janet (Wong) talks about how collaboration helps us be more innovative in trying many things, including reading with pets. And we'll both be sharing excerpts from our book, Pet Crazy, of course. Kathi Appelt talks about her beautiful picture book, Mogie, about a (real) therapy dog who became the heart of a Houston hospital. Amy McFadden shares her experiences with Barking Book Buddies, an Austin program that pairs kids and dogs reading together. And we'll even have volunteers from that program attending WITH THERAPY DOGS! Here are some of my slides on the background of pet reading programs.

 

 

 

 

Be sure to check out Heidi's Poetry Friday blog post at My Juicy Little Universe about her week at the poetry institute at the Poetry Foundation. It is full of good ideas! Here's the link.