Poetry at the Library

I hear that it is National Poetry Month. I’m seeing and hearing poetry everywhere. Bloggers are posting poems, teachers are teaching poems, students are writing poems, reviewers are reviewing books of poems. So this week at the library, we picked out a couple of interesting books of poems to read with the kids.

Toad by the Road, A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians was written by Joanne Ryder and illustrated by Maggie Kneen. It was published by Henry Holt and Co. in 2007.

It begins with Spring – Summer and goes through the seasons of the year with poems about toads. Each page has a poem and at the bottom of the page is a short natural history lesson about toads. Nice.

I really like this book! The illustrations are softly realistic, the poems are quite Rhythmic and whimsical. (I like that word, whimsical!) I like this one —

Old Toad’s Warning
Toadlets,
Beware!
Please cross
The road
With wide-eyed care.
Be sure to look
This way
and that.
Then hop,
Don’t stop ….
Or —
Splat!
You’re flat.

Now isn’t that awesome! What a fun way to learn about such silly creatures as toads!

Once I Ate a Pie is by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest and illustrated by Katy Schneider. It was published by Joanna Cotler Books in 2006. Ms MacLachlan has written several books that I like especially.

Now, this is a book of poems from dogs. 13 in all. The poems are free form and ramble around the pages. They’re fun to read and fun to look at. The illustrations are really nice. They look just like dogs! And they are illustrations of real dogs – named Smudgey, Rudy, Crazy Earl, Honey Baby, Enzo, Frozzie, Clyde, Sugar, Ella, and Wupsi! ( This according to the book jacket back flap. Some of the names attached to the poems are different?) In the poems they chase snowflakes, watch their people, sleep on their people’s pillows, play cute, run and bark, borrow things, sniff things, and eat pies. In other words, they all do dog things! I ate a chocolate cake one time. Every single crumb. And I sure did enjoy it! Until the Mom Person made me throw it all up. It wasn’t as much fun coming up as it was going down. But now I know that I have to be sneakier about forays into the kitchen.

Both of these books are very good. They are funny and cute and informative. You should check them out.

One of the classes that I have been visiting this week is writing limericks. Here is the one that I came up with while I was working really hard.

Rhythm is a Lab with a mission.
They caught her out doing some fishin’.
But instead of a hook
She was using a book
And wishin’ for kids to come listen.

What have you written today?