As anyone who knows me at all already knows, I am a lover of books. And I am a lover of poetry. And I am a teacher. What then, could be better, than a book that combines books, and poetry, and could also be used in a classroom?
BOOKSPEAK by Laura Purdie Salas is a book about reading. Some poems- Calling All Readers, The Sky is Falling, Hydrophobiac, Vacation Time
On the Shelf and Under the Bed captures the joys of reading, owning, and caring (or not caring) for books.
Several of the poems, I've Got This Covered, A Character Pleads for His Life, Picture This, I'm Conflicted, and The Middle's Lament: A Poem for Three Voices and The End will be terrific to use in the fiction unit I am currently completing with my fourth graders. And then there's Index to share when we are working on nonfiction. (Do anyone else's students have trouble remembering the difference between an index and a table of contents?)
There are several poems that simply create beautiful images around books and words: Paper Sky, Written in Snow, and my dear friend MaryLee's favorite, Skywriting. Please be sure for read Mary Lee's beautiful review, complete with video of "bird blobs."
The illustrations, by Canadian Josee Bisaillon, are a combination of paint (I think), cut paper, and collage, mostly done in shades of orange, blue, golds, greens. Hard to describe, but gorgeous!
The End is one of my favorites, because it so captures me as a reader:
THE END
You race,
toward me,
checking pages numbers
and calculating their distance.
You
sprint skip skim
to win
the reader's race
to cross me--
the book's finish line.
But then
you
smile, cry, sigh
flip to chapter one
and start again.
I am not so much
The End
as I am an
invitation back
to the beginning.
- Laura Purdie Salas
2 comments:
Yes, it's a terrific book, and I just got it! I really think it will be a good text for numerous ages. I'm glad you like it, too!
Oh--Thank you, Carol, for this lovely review! I'm so glad you (and Linda) like BookSpeak!
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