Monday Reading - Reading & Writing Makes a Difference

              Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites.  Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR

        

      Yes, it's May and we carry on! I hope this month finds you continuing to do well, finding great books to enjoy, time to be outside enjoying your family and spring blooms. Perhaps in a safe way, you'll get to see some friends again? There are still challenges and an overwhelming list of people who need help.  

On Friday, I shared Irene Latham's recent poetry book published last month is titled Nine, A Book of Nonet Poems, illustrated by Amy Huntington. 

Today, I have another poetry book to share, this time a poetry book for teachers to use when enjoying poetry with students!

            I taught middle-school-aged students for many years and it was important to me to teach (share?) poetry often with them, hoping they would leave me with a love they would have for the rest of their lives. Thus, I had a lot of books full of poems, and books for teaching poetry, too. They helped me grow my love as well. Now, Marjorie Maddox has written a book that I would have adored during those teaching years. In an exciting opening letter from her, she says: "Welcome to a world of mind-doodling, eye-dazzling, ear-bending, new-fangled, old-fashioned fun! Inside Out teaches writing (and reading) from inside the poem, with plenty of tips and tricks for everyone in and out of the classroom." 

              Marjorie's book is not full of explanatory paragraphs explaining poetry forms and poetic elements like other teaching texts. Her poems themselves are the explanations, as she wrote above and as the title predicts: "Inside Out!"  

               Here's an example of the shortest one, clever and definitely a 'show, don't tell'. 

Couplet

Poetic twins all dressed in rhyme

stroll side-by-side in two straight lines.

Nine different 'how-tos' (like 'How to Touch A Poem') have fun with the senses, simile and metaphor, then concrete and abstract (in a tug of war). Following are the wonderfully creative poems that each demonstrate a poem form! Sestinas are a favorite form of mine, but it is complex and not so easy to teach, or write! That's one best part about Marjorie's book pages. Her teachings are poems! Wouldn't everyone smile if they saw that a poem titled "Fishing for Sestinas" or "How to Write an English Sonnet"? Here's a taste of this one:

"Good day young reader, might I have this dance,

an English two-step, which I know you'll learn?"

               There is more! The second half of the book is titled "Insider Exercises", beginning with "Befriending A Poem". In these, writers are connected to the earlier poems through various creative activities. Explore more about "concrete and abstract" or "colors", perhaps "smells".  Direct ideas such as "write similes about eating spaghetti" and whole-class exercises in onomatopoeia. When teaching new topics, like these poetry elements, it always felt good to me to offer lots of choices, but under that same umbrella. Marjorie Maddox manages this with expertise in this new book about poetry writing, yet she remains clear in the definitions of the poem forms and elements. 

                 I'm sure I will use some the ideas in this wonderful book in my own writing, and as I said in the beginning, I wish I had had it when I taught!

     

            I loved Victoria Jamieson's earlier graphic stories, All's Faire In Middle School and Roller Girl. She tells stories that tackle topics that are good for readers to know. This one is a bit different, written with Omar Mohamed. It tells the story of Omar's childhood spent in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Omar and his younger brother Hassan fled their homeland of Somalia when civil war broke out and spent the next 18 years in Dadaab. He did finally immigrate to the United States with his younger brother, Hassan. 



            Sometimes it's challenging to choose how much to share about a plot. With this one, you should know that it brought such sadness to me to know that, according to the UN, in 2019, there are nearly 71 million people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide. When you read this, you will see that Victoria used her artistic talents to bring the breadth of the problem to readers while writing about only one camp. To learn the refugee story, she met Omar and heard his story, which is all their stories, yet only sometimes. Some who live in refugee camps do not get the chance to immigrate and continue to live their lives in such camps. The overwhelming challenge that Omar faces is to keep hope alive. Sometimes he does not, but those surrounding him love and support him, and that makes all the difference. In the face of all of our challenges today, perhaps that is one lesson to learn from this book, to love and support others is a great gift one can give. And the other, to know the fight that refugees must do every day to keep alive. And then, act!

Thanks to Candlewick Press for this book!

          Ernestine is going camping with her Aunt Jackie and cousin Samantha. She says: "Its so quiet. And big!" In a graphic story, Jennifer Mann shares all the truths about camping for Ernestine's first time. There's the long, long list of things to pack (also drawn on the inside covers of the book), the long, long drive to get to the woodsy camping spot, by a lake, and the dark night when Samantha cannot go to sleep and misses home. That first day, she is also shy about lake swimming. The fish might bite! But by the time patient Aunt Jackie takes her to look at the stars so she can finally get to sleep, Ernestine snuggles into her sleeping bag and quickly comes a new and wonderful day of fun. Finally home, she thinks her dad might have missed her and suggests a sleepover the following week! It's a lovely story from start to finish, showing all the madness of camping, but the wonder, too, like stars and s'mores! Told by Samantha, a newbie to this camping stuff, readers might see their own fears supported. 
It is a book I would want to share with students and will share with my granddaughters!

Here are some new chapter books for early readers!

Thanks, Candlewick Press & the Jim Henson
Company!

        From the "Dot" television series comes a debut about Dot who wants very much to help her dad catch some fish. (He always comes home empty-handed.) She actually has a GPS froggie fish-finder, but in this adventure, catching a big fish turns out not to be the only lesson learned. 

Thanks to Candlewick Press !

          You can tell from the cover that this book by Cece Bell is going to give some big laughs. This hilarious on-going argument holds a big surprise at the end that resolves everything. I suspect young readers will love this silly, repeating story. The illustrations are alive enough to make me hear all the shouting!   

What I'm Reading and What's Next: Still reading Emily St. Mandel's new adult book, The Glass Hotel and starting Gargantis by Thomas Taylor, the sequel to Malamander.