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Thank you, fellow Inkling, Linda Mitchell, for this month’s prompt which gave me permission to write an almost-definito for a word I’d been saving since mid-March:
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You can see what the other Inklings came up with here:
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Linda B. has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at TeacherDance.
My Powerful Hair
by Carole Lindstrom
illustrated by Steph Littlebird
Abrams Books, 2023
review copy from the public library
Once upon a time, I wrote a book about the power of read aloud. One of the stories in that book was about the time when I read aloud The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. Our exploration of Byron’s new “conk” hairstyle led to a whole class share time of hair products and tools, with the highlight being my Sikh student and his mother educating us about the role of uncut hair in their religion. It was one of the most powerful moments in my teaching career.
There are now lots of books exploring hair and identity, the newest being My Powerful Hair. This book is important AND it is beautifully written and illustrated. Don’t miss the endpapers. Don’t ignore the Author’s Note and definitely don’t shy away from the shameful history of Indian boarding schools. Don’t neglect to share with your children/students that both the author and illustrator are Indigenous creators. Don’t miss this book.
Twenty Questions
by Mac Barnett
illustrated by Christian Robinson
Penguin Random House, 2023
review copy from the public library
While we’re on the subject of questions (see previous post), you need this book in your classroom and/or life.
The text of this book is, indeed, composed of twenty questions. (I counted.) The first is very literal. You can use it to teach the word literal: “How many animals can you see in this picture?” The next question lets the reader know that this will not be a (boring) literal book: “How many animals can you not see in this one, because they’re hiding from the tiger?” It gets more and more creative (inferential, opinion based) from there, one of my favorites being “Which of these children is dreaming of peaches?”
This is a book that will invite conversation and story telling. This is a book that will invite creative question-asking. It might even invite collage-making along with creative question-asking. Let’s get started!
Write a poem in the style of Neruda.
The urge to skip this month’s Poetry Sisters challenge was strong. I went to last Sunday’s zoom meeting with an idea for a way to come to this challenge through the back door. I was also hoping for a Cliffs Notes version of The Style of Neruda that could help me on my way, or, at the very least, provide content for my cheat. I got both.
Tricia shared this recent children’s book:
And others reminded me that Neruda is known for his odes. (Also sonnets, but only Tanita had the bandwidth to go that direction. Yay, Tanita!)
Here’s my cheat: a golden shovel with the striking line running through the middle of the poem, inspired by Neruda’s BOOK OF QUESTIONS and my garden.
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We are still inside National Poetry Month, so I was determined, also, to get a cherita out of this challenge. I leaned in the direction of Neruda’s odes for this one.
Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with this month:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town and the Progressive poem is at Still in Awe with Karin Fisher-Golton.
Happy Almost the End of National Poetry Month! All of my cheritas can be found at Poetrepository. So that I can catch up reading YOUR projects, I declare May to be Read What Everyone Else Did for NPM Month!
The Tree and the River
by Aaron Becker
Penguin Random House, 2023
review copy from the public library
Full disclosure: I am NOT the Mary Lee to whom the book is dedicated!
This is a GORGEOUS wordless picture book. If it feels like Becker is painting from life, it might be because, according to the back flap,
“To prepare for the illustrations he first constructed a scale model of the book’s rolling landscape, which he then transformed with clay and wood over many months.”
At first, the story might seem like a tale of environmental destruction/dystopian future with a bit of a rainbow (literally) at the end. But look closely. Go back to the title page, to the first illustration. Look closely. You might see a different kind of long-term hope. For our planet. For humanity.
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Happy Poetry Friday! Happy Poetry Month! Happy Earth Day Eve!
Karen has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Karen Edmisten*.
Everything might be falling into place with the Progressive Poem. Sarah Grace has today’s line.
Yoshi, Sea Turtle Genius: A True Story About an Amazing Swimmer
by Lynne Cox
illustrated by Richard Jones
Penguin Random House, 2023
review copy from the public library
Lynne Cox is one of my sheroes. She herself is an amazing swimmer, breaking records for long-distance swimming in difficult water without a wetsuit — most notably, swimming to Antarctica! If SHE thinks Yoshi is an amazing swimmer, Yoshi must be an amazing swimmer.
Yoshi is a loggerhead turtle. She hatched on a beach in Australia, then survived and grew in the Indian Ocean for five years before being snagged by a fishing net off the coast of South Africa. She was rescued by a fisherman, then placed in an aquarium, where she lived for over 20 years. After conditioning and training, and with a tracker attached to her shell, Yoshi was released back into the wild as an adult loggerhead. She first swam north, up the coast of Africa, then she turned around and swam south and then east, all the way to Australia, mating along the way and laying her eggs on the very beach where she (likely) hatched herself.
Amazing, right? Plus, this book is beautifully written and gorgeously illustrated. It has just the right amount of text for a read aloud, and I can bet there will be passionate conversations about the consequences of pollution, the pros and cons of zoos and aquariums, and the absolute genius of Yoshi.
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All of my cheritas for the month can be found here.
If you missed it, one of Jone’s students made a powerful work of art and social commentary with my poem from last year’s NPM project, “Dandelions.” Go watch her video. Have a tissue ready.
Jone has the Poetry Friday roundup today, featuring Classic Found Poems. I’m late to the party, but I found a cherita inside A WRINKLE IN TIME, p.191.
comparing our lives to a sonnet:
a strict form
but freedom within it
you’re given the form
but you have to write the sonnet yourself–
what you say is completely up to you
Jone also has the next line in the Progressive Poem tomorrow. Sounds like my life at the beginning of the month! Such fun times in April!
In Between by April Pulley Sayre with Jeff Sayre
Simon and Schuster, 2023
review copy from the public library
It’s been a minute since this blog has been anything except Poetry Friday, but last week I sat down with the March/April issue of The Horn Book and the Columbus Metropolitan Library app. As I read reviews, I reserved titles. The bounty has begun to come in, and I’ve got LOTS of great new books to share.
We’ll start with In Between. This is April’s last book. But even as a last, it is also an in between. An in between for her readers as well as for her husband and co-author, Jeff. In the dedication, April wrote, “For anyone walking the uncertain path between endings and new beginnings.” That would be all of us, all the time, right?
April’s photographs in this book are more stunning than usual, and paired perfectly with her words. She reassures us that it is perfectly normal to be in between, and although we (and the animals) are feeling awkward and not at all ready for what comes next, we “Grow stronger.”
And although “Paws may pause. Eyes may stare.” we’ll be okay, because, “…it’s only an in between.”
I can’t wait to read and discuss this book with my Kids Club kids!
Back when I issued my challenge to the Inklings, I thought my Poetry Month project would be Dictionary Hopscotch — I would randomly choose 4 words from different spots in the dictionary and then use at least 3 of them in a poem.
So I challenged my fellow Inklings to use 3 of these 4 randomly chosen words in a poem: knuckle, denial, turn, cautious.
And then I changed my project to cheritas.
Therefore, this:
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Here’s how the rest of the crew met my challenge:
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Margaret has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Reflections on the Teche.
Don’t forget to check up on the Progressive Poem! Links are in the sidebar.
Days 1-6 of my #NPM23 project can be found on FB, IG and at Poetrepository.
The hopscotch image is via Unsplash.
