TWO NEW BABY/TODDLER PRESENTS

People who invite me to baby showers know, without a doubt, that I will bring books. Let other people bring the onesies, and diapers, and nose-sucker-outer thingies, I will bring the important stuff- food for the heart and the brain. Last week, while I was at the library (please note, I did not say bookstore!) I found a couple of really fun baby or toddler read alouds.

GOOD NIGHT BABY RUBY- Rohan Henry

Baby Ruby has had her bath, and should be headed off to bed, but no one can find her. She travels throughout the house, stopping to visit various family members and pets along the way.  This book is destined to be a classic, kind of along the lines of GOODNIGHT MOON. The illustrations are very simple- black line drawings with just a little color, just like the cover. I know kids will ask for this book again and again.

PEEKABOO BEDTIME- Rachel Isadora

PEEKABOO BEDTIME features an African American toddler preparing for bed by playing peekaboo with everything in her line of vision, e.g. "Peekaboo, I see my daddy" OR "Peekaboo, I see my cat."  The book begins with a right hand page with the phrase, "Peekaboo, I see…" When you turn the page, you see the object the child is seeing. It would only take kids a couple of pages to realize that clues in each large, brightly colored illustration allow the reader to predict what is coming next.

An aside: OK, I said these books would be good baby presents, and that's definitely true, but I could also see using the books to teach primary grade students how to use pictures to predict text or how to be good picture detectives. If I was teaching ECE, kindergarten or first grade, I would also want these books in a basket of trade books students could easily read, those NO DAVID kind of books that kids return to again and again.

POETRY FRIDAY

The last couple of years, Denver has been dry, dry, dry and everything has been brown and crispy. This summer, we have had a thunderstorm almost every afternoon. I love the green!

RAIN IN SUMMER

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs,

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

****

In the country, on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain

How welcome is the rain!

Read the rest of the poem here.

Poetry Friday is at Crossover Books.

THE MOSTLY TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOMER P. FIGG- RODMAN PHILBRICK

Last weekend, my blogging friend Mary Lee (Year of Reading) was in town. I asked her about novels she had read recently, and she recommended THE MOSTLY TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOMER P. FIGG. On Monday, when I was at the library (notice I did not say bookstore!), I picked it up. I have to agree with Mary Lee, it's a good one.

Homer P. Figg is an orphan. He lives with his brother Harold Figg and a wicked step uncle, Squint, on a farm in Pine Swamp, Maine. After an unforunate incident involving pig slop, Squint becomes angry with the boys and finagles a deal so that Harold is conscripted into the Union Army, even though he is seventeen and not technically old enough to serve. Homer sets out to find his brother and bring him home. And so begin the adventures (or perhaps the misadventures) of Homer P. Figg…

In his hunt for his brother, Homer is captured by evil bounty hunters Smelt and Stink, meets Jebediah Brewster, a Quaker whose home is a station on the Underground Railroad, and travels as the "Pig Boy" with Professor Fenton Fleabottom, an elixir salesman with a few secrets of his own. His adventures (or misadventures) with these characters are funny and fun to read, but also include a great deal of information about life during the Civil War era.

A couple of parts toward the end felt a little forced and were a little hard to believe. Mostly, though, it's a really good read. I'd use HOMER P. FIGG in a unit on the Civil War, maybe in a text set with ELIJAH OF BUXTON. 

PRINCESS AND THE PEA- Rachel Isadora

I am always on the lookout for new versions of fairy and/or folktales, and especially those with a bent toward diversity. While I was at the library tonight (did you notice this does NOT say bookstore?), I found a new to me version of the Hans Christian Anderson folktale, PRINCESS AND THE PEA. It's actually a couple of years old, so maybe everyone in the world has seen it, but I hadn't and I fell in love immediately. The story is set in Africa. The illustrations are one of my favorite genre, collage. This would make a fabulous addition to any folk tale collection.

RETURN TO SENDER- Julia Alvarez

Tyler Paquette is an eleven-year-old boy, growing up on his family's dairy farm in Vermont. When his father is seriously injured in a tractor accident, the family is faced with hiring extra help or losing their farm. They hire three Mexican workers, who move into a trailer on the Paquette farm. One of the men has three daughters. Mari, the oldest, is about Tyler's age and the two children soon become friends.

Although the workers are a godsend in keeping the Paquette family farm afloat, there are many questions. First, and most pressing, although the workers have papers, no one is convinced that they are in the United States legally. Will "La Migra" (Homeland Security) come and take them away?Secondly, Mari's mom left for Mexico to visit her sick mother in  a year before and never returned. Where has she gone? Is she still alive? Finally, there are issues of culture and language. Mari writes about these issues, and others surrounding her family through the genres of letters and diaries (I love that aspect of the book).

As someone who teaches many children whose families have immigrated from Mexico (some legally but many illegally), I learned a great deal from reading RETURN TO SENDER. I have always known that my students worry about their families being split up or sent back to Mexico. I know that their families have less to live on because they send a portion of their salaries to relatives back home in Mexico. I know that my students often go without medical or dental care because of their immigrant status. This book helped me understand these issues at a much deeper level. For those reasons, I'm really glad I discovered RETURN TO SENDER.

At the same time, I don't know very many elementary kids, even upper elementary kids, that would enjoy this book. It's a book I would try with my most advanced elementary readers, or maybe as an after school book club with some of our older girls. Or, I might just encourage students to read the book in middle school… 

POETRY FRIDAY ROUNDUP

A POETRY FRIDAY ROUNDUP LIMERICK*

There was an old lady from Denver,

With a P Friday Roundup to tender,

She tried and she tried,

But her tired body sighed,

So on Saturday, the roundup did ender.

* with apologies to the REAL poets in the crowd!

POEMS FOR FATHER'S DAY AND SUMMER

• Sara Lewis Holmes (Read, Write, Believe) offers a tribute to her brother on Father's Day with e.e. cummings, "my father moved through dooms of love." 
  
• Karen Edmisten shares Seamus Haney's, "Digging," a portrait of his potato farmer grandfather.
• Our friends at Stenhouse are in with a beautiful Walt Whitman poem, "On the Beach at Night."
• It hasn't gotten too hot yet in Colorado, but if you are feeling a little warm, you will want to check out Mary Helmrick's "Hot Summer Nights," brought to us by Beth at Stone Arch Books. 
• For a little more sunshine, travel over to Blue Rose Girls to read Frank Asch's "Sunflakes," posted by Elaine Magliaro.
• Smell summer with Debbie Diesen's original poem, "Mowing."
• Take another mini-vacation. Stand by a river with Tiel Aisha Ansari's  beautiful "Osprey Circles."

ORIGINAL POEMS

• Wow, wow, wow! If you want to inhale a metaphor, check out Miss Erin Marie's poem, "Chasing White Rabbit."
• Julie Larios at The Drift Record has also drawn on a few fairy tales in her new list poem, "Counting Song." This very talented lady shares not one but THREE original poems today.
  
• Gregory K. throws in a little mathematics with his "Search Fib." The "Fib" is based on the Fibonacci sequence (think back to high school algebra). Gregory's is a "search fib" because he used words that had drawn people to his blog.
• Every week I tell myself I'm going to participate in Laura Salas' 15 word poetry challenge. I never quite get the job done, but I sure admire the variety and brilliance of the poems that pore in. This week's poems are in response to a photo of dominoes. 
• Take along a couple of tissues when you read "Recital," Kelly Polark's poem for two voices. It made this mom get a little choked up.

POEMS BY OTHER POETS

• Like all of you, I've been more than a little troubled by the images coming from Ir*n. "Freedom," posted by  Color Online was a perfect read for today.
• The way poet Jean Garrigue's  puts together words in the poem, "The Grand Canyon" is almost as breathtaking as, well, as the the Grand Canyon. Thanks to Muriel at "The Write Sisters" for sharing this poem. 
• Kelly Fineman shares Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30," along with a really in-depth analysis. If you have not been following Kelly's Shakespeare series this month, treat yourself. I've learned more from Kelly this month than I did in all of my high school and college literature classes.
• Little Willow is also in with a little Shakespeare, Act Four, Scene Five, from HAMLET. 
• John Mutford offers "Noah" by Tom Dawes, and I think about all of the kids I knew/know who struggled to fit in as kids, but are inordinately successful, creative, wonderful adults.
• Laura Shovan (Author Amok) gives us Shirley J. Brewer's "Shoe Blues," a hilarious commentary on what I unaffectionately call "Short Occasion Shoes."
•  After you are done laughing, wander over to Jama Rattigan's blog for a clothing cultural commentary, Kenneth Koch's "You Were Wearing. " 
• Jules (7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast) shares "A Small Dragon" by Brian Patten . I could see myself  pairing this poem with "If You Are a Dreamer" by Shel Silverstein or with Eric Carle's book, DRAGONS, DRAGONS.
• Pour a cup of coffee, then listen to Ted Boss read, "This Morning in a Morning Voice." I'll be thinking about the line "drowned in more than my fair share of joy" for a while. Thanks to Tricia (Miss Rumphius Effect)  for sharing this beautiful "small moment" poem!

BOOK REVIEWS

• Diane Mayr (Random Noodlings) introduces Jane Yolen's newest picture book, MY UNCLE EMILY, about Emily Dickinson.
  
• Then check out Lee Bennett Hopkins' newest offering, INCREDIBLE INVENTIONS, reviewed by Elaine Magliaro (Wild Rose Readers).  The kids I know will love these poems about the origin of kitty litter and straws and velcro!
  
• And while we are talking about books we know kids will love, you have to check out Fran Manushkin's THE TUSHY BOOK, reviewed by Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy
•  Kurious Kitty. introduced me to a new to me poet, Jim Harrison. I want to go looking for his book, THE SHAPE OF THE JOURNEY, this weekend.
• April Halprin Wayland (Teaching Authors) shares five favorite poetry books, including Calling The Doves—El canto de las palomas by Juan Felipe Herrera, which sounds like a book I definitely need to know.  Be sure you read all the way to the bottom of her post where she includes an original poem about reading, (poems AND reading-what could be better???), then try the poetry writing challenge.

AND A FEW MORE…

• Tabatha describes her offering as a "poetry grab bag." She could  have also called it a smorgasboard- a little Pushkin, a little Lucy Maud Montgomery, and a little twitter poetry. 
• Sally at Paper Tigers wonders about children writing poetry. 
• David Elzey wonders whether the old Burma Shave ads might provide a "template" for poems on Twitter. As someone who doesn't have lots of interesting stuff to Tweet (how many different ways can you say, "I'm driving my kids somewhere" or "I'm sitting at a sports practice waiting for one of my kids?"), I'm gonna try it. (A side note: Mary Ann Hoberman is doing some really clever twittering as "KidsPoetLaureat"). 
• Sylvia's Poetry Suitcase, (Poetry for Children) sounds like a really fun way of making poetry real for children. I think I will use this idea the first week we are back in school.
• Mary Lee (Year of Reading) has a quote from Elizabeth Berg's newest book. It's not about poetry, but it's definitely too good to miss. 

Think that's everyone. If I left anyone off, it was totally accidental, so just email me and I will fix it. Thanks for participating in Poetry Friday! See you next week at Crossover!

WELCOME TO POETRY FRIDAY!

P ull up a chair,

O pen your heart,

E xplore a fresh dream,

T ake time for old friends,

R evise a poem that’s been waiting for you, or

Y ou could write something new.

F ear no critics,

R emember, this is a place for friends, 

I nhale a metaphor, 

D ream a little,

A waken a new idea, then go, gentle and ready

Y ou’ve dwelt in  poetry…

Post you comment. I'll do a roundup at the end of the day.

Thanks for dropping by!