SOLC # 30 of 31 - Still Reading & Writing

            Forgive the strange formatting-ugh! I worked to make changes, just couldn't figure it out. . .

      Day Thirty of the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.   Tweet at #SOL15. There's one more day of this wonderful March slicing. What a time it has been! 

        Thanks to Tara, Dana, Anna, Betsy, Beth and Stacey for the constant inspiration. 

Also blogging with my students at Linda & Jonathan's Class Blog.

          Link up with Jen at TeachMentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders. and Sheila at Book Journeys.  Come visit, and tweet at #IMWAYR. Thanks to Jen, Kellee, and Ricki for hosting!

       The day after tomorrow is April, POETRY MONTH.  Most times I will write and share a poem, some days I'll share poems by others, but I do plan to fill the month with poetry in some way, every day! Some of us have planned to support each other in April, using the hashtag #DigiPoetry, created by Margaret Simon of Reflections on The Teche.   You'll welcome to join us if you'd like!

       I bought Goodnight Songs by Margaret Wise Brown at the reading conference in

February, and just sat down Sunday afternoon to read and listen. Yes, listen! This book is a lullaby treasure, accompanied by a cd, new poems/songs written by Margaret Wise Brown and discovered by Amy Gary, hidden in a trunk in a barn, finally revealed by Margaret's sister. Twelve illustrators whom you know and love have illustrated each song, Tom Pratt and Emily Gary have gathered together a group that composed the music for each one. The back of the book gives short biographies of the illustrators and a  note from the musicians; the front introduction by Amy Gary shares the story of this amazing discovery. It's a must read, to see the pictures by Jonathan Bean, Carin Berger, Sophie Blackall, Linda Bleck, Renata Liwska, Zachariah Ohora, Eric Puybaret, Sean Qualls, Isabel Roxas, Melissa Sweet and Dan Yaccarino. What a collaboration to celebrate! Here's one beginning of a song/poem: "When the man in the moon was a little boy,/Sing hi ho, the man in the moon./He ran away with a shooting star./Ho hum, the many in the moon."
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        It seems odd to be sharing two very scary books today. It makes me feel as if we're back in October, nearing Halloween. Don't forget these two if you like the hair raising at the back of your neck and please read these only in the daylight, too spooky for nighttime!

Through The Woods - Stories and illustrations by Emily Carroll

 Although I didn’t know it, evidently this graphic comic includes a popular story by Emily Carroll already published, “His Face All Red” and four other spooky tales, enhance by the black and red drawings that slash and interweave into the stories of short text that requires a vivid imagination. Only for young adolescents and up! Take a journey into the woods in this book! My students loved it! Here are some of the

favorite lines: The last thing she found. . . was a head.

. . .which sang: I married my love in the spring time, but by summer He’d locked me away. He’d murdered me dead by the autumn, & by winter I was naught but decay.  

           Later, almost in the end: “That night bell’s dreams had teeth.” 

           “They bit into her, clinging eve when she woke, keeping her from falling back to sleep.”

Hansel & Gretel - written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti

           Neil Gaiman brings this familiar story back and it is really the same story, although I wouldn't read it to anyone except middle grades and up. It's rather scary to think that there might be parents who will "lose" their children (the word used in the book). No surprises here, but the text is on double pages alternating with double page illustrations, dark ink-smeared page spreads where one can just make out the houses, or the woodcutter, or the children. One can look and look and still miss something. A favorite line from Gaiman's lovely wording: They went so deep into the old forest that the sunlight was stained green by the leaves. They pushed through brambles, and the thorns tugged at their clothes as if to say "Stay here! Stay here!"

Still Reading: The Martian by Andy Weir, but nearly done. Next is The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a coming book group.