Poetry

Five Books of Poetry (#readathon)

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Poetry /

I probably should have started the #readathon with the poetry, I’m tired and that’s not the best time to read poetry. Thankfully, all five of these were good – for different reasons.

Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers – I always like books like this, that tell the story of art and artists.

We Are America: A Tribute From the Art – As you’d expect from Walter Dean Myers. A book everyone should read (maybe particularly during an election year…)

Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems – As a big sister, I had to love this one. Because little sisters are annoying and wonderful all at the same time.

Dear Hot Dog – Poetry to everyday things (like toothpaste and socks and sunshine. My favorite is about light.)

Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems – I have two children who love Elephants so this one made me particularly happy. I’ll be buying it for someone…

(Readathon page count, 1,619)

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Two More Books – One Fun, One Not Fun At All (#readathon)

2 Comments / 2012, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult /

First  – A little book I noticed on the library shelf and thought it might be fun to read and interesting for the kids to flip through, The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions from Pop Culture That You Should Know About… before it’s too late.

I’ve read/watched/heard most of the stuff featured here and it was fun to think about old movies and old books – One I haven’t read but am going to have to check out one of these days is The Scarlet Plague.  And now I have the urge to watch Tank Girl again. Or Mad Max. Or even Waterworld. Heh.

Now the not fun at all book, from the Cybils Shortliste – Requiem Poems of the Terezin Ghetto.  Nothing fun about Holocaust poetry. Nothing at all. I’m glad I read it, though.

(Readathon page count: 1,032)

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The Dreamer

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Poetry /

I really liked The Dreamer. I liked the way the author inserted strong questions pulled from the story being told – very Neruda-like. Inclusion of some of Neruda’s poems at the end was a must – and greatly appreciated since I was wondering where I might find Neruda poetry on my shelf at 11pm when I finished this book, last night.

This is a very, very nice way to introduce young readers to Pablo Neruda.

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Three More Cybils – Children’s Poetry

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry /

And with these three, I finish up the Poetry category from the 2010 Cybils Shortlist.

Sharing the Seasons was a nice enough book of poetry. It seems like there’s a new seasonal poetry book every year, doesn’t it? This one is pretty much just like those. Some poetry that you’ve seen in other places plus some new poems. The illustrations are nice. I didn’t love the book or hate it. It was nice.

Next, a book I really liked. It reminded me a wee bit of another book from the short list that I didn’t like… (Ubiquitous). You might remember that I didn’t like that one because I didn’t like the poetry. I liked the science-y descriptions but the poetry bored me. Dark Emperor of the Night was similar in that it had a page of poetry and then it had factual discussions that were related to each of the poems. The poetry was excellent. The discussions, equally excellent. The kicker was the artwork. I kept running my fingers over the images – Rick Allen’s prints were amazing. I would buy one of his prints, it doesn’t matter of what, and hang it on my wall. Beautiful work. Beautiful choice for this book.

Finishing it up, Switching on the Moon. Very nice book of bedtime poetry. I even liked how it was sorted into sections and I liked the poems chosen to end/start each section. Nicely done. No complaints about this one.

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Three More Cybils

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Poetry /

Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat is a children’s non-fiction book about Ella Fitzgerald. Great photos. Nice storytelling. Ella as a homeless teen is kind of dark, if you have really young kids – but I liked that her difficult early years weren’t glossed over. Nicely done.

Mirror Mirror is a children’s poetry book and it was pretty good. Each duo of poems is based on a fairy tale. The poem is told top to bottom and then bottom to top. Smartly done.

A Sick Day for Amos McGee was not my kind of story. Amos gets up everyday and takes the bus to work at the zoo. He does things with the animals like play chess with the elephant and tell bedtime stories to the owl, who is afraid of the dark. One morning Amos wakes up with a cold and doesn’t go to work – so the animals take the bus to his house and do all of the things for him that he always does for them. It was nice enough and I’m betting my kids would have asked for it to be read to them over and over again while I yawned a lot.

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Three Cybils – One Yay! One Nay! One In Between!

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult /

I’m digging into the poetry category and back into the YA category from the Cybils shortlist. I’m nonplussed about both categories so far, which is troubling.

First, Split. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. Christian seemed wrong to me but not as wrong as both Miriam and Dakota seemed. The women in Jace’s new life seemed almost too perfect and too good, though the author tried to make sure that we understood neither was like Jace’s mom or like Lauren. Still. I don’t know. Miriam before she got to know about all of Jace’s problems seemed a little over the top, then once she found out the entire story, she seemed to willing to dig her heels in for the long haul. It just seemed – backwards and not as realistic as I’d hoped.  The most troubling thing here – this was the YA winner. Darn. Maybe it’s just me?

Then Ubiquitous – great title for a children’s poetry book. Nice pictures. Good idea. The poetry left me bored while I enjoyed the facts about all of the ubiquitous creatures. For a poetry book, the poetry shouldn’t leave you bored. Kids have a hard enough time getting in to poetry to start with.

Next comes Scarum Fair – loved it. Loved the artwork. Loved the poetry. Loved the idea. Not for kids who scare easily but for kids who like ghoulish make believe – fabulous. Love, love, love.

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The Chicken Chronicles

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Poetry, short stories, Women /

I like Alice Walker. I like chickens. Or actually, I think I have learned that I like the idea of Alice Walker and the idea of Chickens. There’s a slight difference and I think it took Walker’s The Chicken Chronicles for me to learn it.

I’ve always been a fan of Walker’s writing but while reading her books or poems, I always find myself troubled by something. Some niggling little something that I shush away because I LIKE ALICE WALKER.

I’ve always been a fan of chickens and I’ve told TW and those kids who want chickens that someday we could have them. But some niggling something about that troubled me. But, I shushed that away too because I LIKE CHICKENS.

So reading The Chicken Chronicles, I have finally decided to those niggling little feelings that something’s not quite right or not quite as wonderful as I might wish. I no longer want chickens. I’d like to visit them. I’d like to babysit a few for awhile. But I don’t think I really want to own them. I’d get attached. They’re messy.  No. I’ve decided I don’t really want chickens.

I’ve also decided what it is that has troubled me about Walker – I still like her writing. I still admire her as a woman. I’ll keep reading what she writes. But I don’t think I’ll be overlooking the little things about her that do truly bug me. Like calling herself mommy while writing letters to chickens. That’s totally an Alice Walker thing and that’s fine, it’s who she is. Great. But I don’t really like it. I don’t feel it. I’m not that kind of woman. I’m ok with her being the kind of woman who writes that way, I just don’t have to pretend I like it.

Other than that, The Chicken Chronicles was interesting. I liked it – overlooking the mommy stuff, of course. I liked the idea of her writing to chickens. I like her honesty when it comes to learning how to live with the chickens, how to take care of them, how she didn’t always do the best job or take the best care because she didn’t know. Didn’t understand. Had to learn. That’s really what I like about Walker, that’s what always keeps me overlooking the little things that really bug me about her work. Underneath it all – she’s real and she’s honest and there’s not enough of that in the world.

And I’ve re-subscribed to her blog because I liked the book enough to want to keep reading more of Walker’s letters to her chickens. Check it out at Alice Walker’s Garden. (Thank goodness Agnes of God is ok… the most recent entry scared the holy hell out of me. Not Agnes of God!… )

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Cybils Short List – One Poetry, One Graphic Novel

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Poetry /

I was really looking forward to Borrowed Names – a book about mothers/daughters, a book about Laurie Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, and Marie Curie (and their daughters). And I did like it but more than half the book was the store of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder. The Walkers and Curies felt shorted – which is too bad because I particularly liked the Walker and Curie sections of this book.

Twin Spica – a little girl wants to be in the first class of the Tokyo Space School. There are problems, of course, it’s a graphic novel after all. The girl’s mom was injured and killed when she was a baby – when the first Japanese rocket crashed into earth after lift-off. Elly read this one before I did and she liked it. I read it and… I liked it too, once I settled into the traditional backwards method of reading (it always takes me about three pages to get used to reading right to left, lol) – but I didn’t get the end. I don’t know if it’s because it was almost midnight when I finished or if I missed a heading that explained what the heck was going on but… I think I need to re-read the last three pages. Maybe that’s the intro to volume two? I don’t know. (FYI to those looking for middle grade graphic novels – there’s some family violence in this book. The father slaps the daughter a couple of times. And there are cases where the kids fight with each other, but in the context, the fighting makes sense (three kids locked in a small room together and told to place dominos – millions of dominos – in line within 7 days …. Or they flunk the test. It’s one of those controlled environment tests for space programs. Totally stressful, read Packing for Mars if you’re confused by this. Heh)

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Cybils Children’s Poetry

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry /

I knocked out all of the shortlisted poetry books from the Cybils list last night:

African Acrostics
The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry
The Monsterologist
Red Sings from Treetops
The Tree that Time Built

I enjoyed The Monsterologist quite a bit. Quick, amusing, great illustrations. African Acrostics was excellent, a nice way to expose kids to a different kind of poetry. The best thing about the Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry is it’s just another Bill Martin Jr book and they all kind of read the same to me. Red Sings from Treetops almost put me to sleep but I soldiered on to my favorite of the bunch…. The Tree that Time Built.

The Tree that Time Built comes with a CD, which I haven’t listened to yet – but I have high hopes for it. The book itself was more than I expected. Poems from great poets. (Langston Hughes, D.H. Lawrence, Mary Oliver, Christina Rossetti… I could go on, but you get the picture….) A brilliant mix of science, nature and poetry with excellent footnotes that are interesting and don’t feel like something I’d skip over because it’s just boring.

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7 Poets 4 Days 1 Book

2010, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Fiction, Poetry /

I picked up 7 poets 4 Days 1 Book at the library because the cover was cool. When I read the first couple of pages, it was even cooler. Seven poets from all of the world came to Iowa to spend four days writing poetry. Not collaboratively but not singularly, either. They’d write, they would read aloud (some had to translate to English, on the spot, because they write in other languages – which I cannot even imagine doing) and then they would edit, write some more, and talk about their poems.

It’s interesting to see themes, common and not, that obviously came from the direct sharing of works in progress. Mis-hearing or misunderstanding another poets words turned into something else completely in someone else’s work. Or pushed them toward something that sounded similar but was different.

Very interesting reading. And, a good choice for both the Dewey Readathon and National Poetry Month.

(And just to help me keep track – 122 pages.)

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