Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and
Jen at
Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!
from Cheriee at
Library Matters:
Just a reminder to everyone participating in #MustReadIn2022, I will host an (entirely optional) update at the end of the month.
I'm writing a poem every day in April for Poetry Month. Come visit, or, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup
here for all the ways poets are celebrating this month.
I have three new poetry books to share for this final Monday of Poetry Month. There are more that have recently been published, but these are the recent ones I've read. Other books read are at the end.
Also, FYI! Friday is "Poem in your Pocket" Day. I'm sharing a poem I wrote about a pocket on that day. Be sure to choose a poem to carry with you on Friday!
Perfect time for #PoetryMonth and for becoming mesmerized while learning about the wonders of space. Sally M. Walker writes haiku, both descriptive and full of tidbits of the facts. Each part has a small organizational piece in the bottom corners, starting first with "constellations and astronomers", and ending with "asteroids, comets, and meteors." I like the idea of this one in "stars" especially. brilliant nebula
cloud pregnant with gas and dust
stellar nursery
Showing off Walker's haiku, Matthew Trueman's illustrations fill double-page spreads with his magical paintings, beautiful to see and to learn from. Anyone's study of space needs to add this book to their collection for both learning and appreciation of what we know is out there when we look up!
Thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!
I love the ocean and don't have its pleasure until an annual trip somewhere! Reading this new one by a poet friend whose online poetry class I have taken offers a delightful peek at what might happen one ocean day, if only one's imagination took hold.
Renée M LaTulippe lives by the sea on the coast of Italy and knows about poetry, and crabs, too. She has written of a fantastic time when crabs rise up to give a show, with seahorses, turtles, anemones, and more. Some pages include the entire 'company' but others focus only on those dancing crabs, so darling! And there are a few other extras in the background, ones you may have seen in their own beautiful ballet leaps--dolphins!
Not only is the story in rhyme accompanied by Cécile Metzger's fabulous watercolor illustrations. (See that cover!) Each page demands more than one look with all the detail. There is a glossary, too, at the back that explains the French ballet terms. Even the end covers fill one up with the beautiful sea creatures and plants.
"turtles spiral in between.
A seahorse pair glides on the scene,
bows deep and low, then soubresaut!
An elegant marine routine."
If you did not know, "soubresaut" means "A sudden small leap in which the dancer jumps from two feet and lands in the same position."
For those who will love a bit of imaginary theater with the added salty theme, this new book will make you smile.
It's a poem-in-your-pocket celebration from Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. Remember Read! Read! Read! and Write! Write! Write! and so many more? In this book, a young girl writes her own poem about carrying a poem, found or written. She spies a bird out the window and wonders what the bird would carry if it had pockets! Amy lets each of the nineteen animals share their own story in the poems while the child finishes up at the end. In varied, lyrical style, the science of the animals is there, cleverly included within the poem. A mother giraffe speaks of her and her young one's unique pattern: "My pattern is unique to me./Hers unique to her./Think fingerprints–/one of a kind./Know me by my fur." And a tarantula shows its unique meal prep: "I sink my fangs./They liquefy./I suck them down/like lemonade." While for some, kids will say, "ew-w-w". For others, they'll think, "Wow!" In "Metaphor in a Meadow", it ends with "I am a walking sky." I won't share what that is but it's an animal you may want to look at again because of Amy's clever poem. Poetry entertains and educates this time as Amy's lovely poems accompanied by Emma J. Virján's brightly colored full-page illustrations make a book every young reader will love.