Poetry Tag: Alice Schertle is IT

Another day, another tag! Kristine O’Connell George shared two connected poems yesterday and tagged her friend, Alice Schertle. Alice writes, “Thanks to all for a bouquet of fabulous poems. Kris, you made that quivering rabbit come to life for me again. A line in Rabbit II, "flight is habit", made me think of a cinquain I wrote for KEEPERS. It's a different kind of flight, but the fear is there. And, after all, every habit begins with a first time.

Oh, and I've pushed a bit beyond the April poetry month here, but then, if April comes, can May be far behind?

Happy spring! This in spite of the fact that snow lies three feet deep in my back yard.” Here is Alice’s cinquain poem from Keepers.


May is
loud with mother
and father birds hopping
up and down, hollering, "You can
DO it!"


From Keepers by Alice Schertle, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1996. Copyright by Alice Schertle, used by permission of the author, who controls all rights.

Five fun facts about Alice Schertle
*her last name rhymes with “turtle”
*she’s a former elementary school teacher
*she moved from California to Massachusetts to experience a new climate
*she can recite many many poems by heart
*she adapted nursery rhymes from Spanish to English in Pio Peep!: Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes selected by Alma Flor Ada and Isabel Campoy
[Based on Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

Look for these selected books by Schertle
*How Now, Brown Cow? (Browndeer/ Harcourt Brace, 1994)
*Advice for a Frog (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1995)
*Keepers (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1996)
*A Lucky Thing (Harcourt Brace, 1999)
*I am the Cat (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1999)
*Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear (HarperCollins, 2003)
*We (Lee & Low, 2007)
*Button Up! Wrinkled Rhymes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)



Next up: Jane Yolen




Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2010. All rights reserved.

Image credit: tagyoureitonline.com;captainstlucifer.wordpress.com/2007/08/;harpercollinschildrens.com;schoollibraryjournal.com