Get ready for National Children’s Book Week, coming Nov. 13-19. This tradition of celebrating and promoting children and their books goes back 85 years and is sponsored by the Children’s Book Council http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbw/ The Council provides posters and other promotional materials featuring art by a different children’s book illustrator every year. In addition, they commission an original poem about books and reading to use on the Book Week bookmark. One of my favorite poem anthologies is a collection of these bookmark poems:
Rich, Mary Perrotta, ed. 1998. Book Poems: Poems from National Children’s Book Week, 1959-1998. New York: Children’s Book Council.
Poets have been writing about the power of reading and books for generations. I collect book-poems and have a box full now! I tried to decide which ONE poem about reading and books was my favorite… but I couldn’t. So, here are seven of my favorites. Share one-a-day for every day of National Children’s Book Week. Enjoy!
“Books Fall Open”
by David McCord
From: ALL DAY LONG (Little Brown 1966)
“Don't Read This Book, Whatever You Do!”
by Kalli Dakos
From: DON'T READ THIS BOOK WHATEVER YOU DO! (Aladdin 1998)
“Good Books, Good Times”
by Lee Bennett Hopkins
From: GOOD BOOKS, GOOD TIMES! (HarperTrophy 2000)
“The List”
by Naomi Shihab Nye
From: A MAZE ME; POEMS FOR GIRLS (Greenwillow 2005)
“The First Book”
by Rita Dove
From: ON THE BUS WITH ROSA PARKS: POEMS (W. W. Norton 1999)
“This Book”
by Joyce Sidman
From her web site http://www.joycesidman.com/bookmark.html
“Read… Think… Dream”
by J. Patrick Lewis
From: THE BOOKWORM'S FEAST: A POTLUCK OF POEMS (Dial 1999)
Sylvia,
ReplyDeleteGreat choices! One of my favorite poems about reading is entitled "Worlds I Know." It was written by Myra Cohn Livingston. In the poem, a child talks about how much she loves when her mother reads to her. It can be found in TOMIE DEPAOLA'S BOOK OF POEMS, which was published in 1988 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.