Poems for Brothers and Poems for Sisters

Poems selected by Myra Cohn Livingston and illustrated by Jean Zallinger

This book isn't as fun as the other poem books I looked at. The illustrations are detailed, and done in what look like pencil. The poems are good, and students in my class may want to free read this, but I don't think I would read it aloud to the class. I don't think it would hold their attention for too long. The poems are all about siblings, what they do together, quarrels, forgiving, and traditions. The poems all look about the same except the length. It would be a good book for diversity because the illustrations show different ethnicities.

nonsense! by edward lear

I love the style of this book. It is a book of poems, all of which are different but start off the same. They all start off with "There was an old man/woman of...." and then the poem continues. This is a good book of poems for younger children because the pictures are so fun and colorful. There are some harder words in the text, like relinquished, wreathed, and affable. These words, however, have the definition written in the illustration which I think is a really neat idea. So the kids are learning these words as they are reading and looking at the pictures. The pages with the poems written on them have great backgrounds like stripes, diamonds, polka dots, and flowers. The illustrations are dont partially on the computer, and partially taken from real life pictures. I would definately use this book in my classroom!

School Supplies a book of poems

Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Illustrated by Renee Flower

This was a very cute selection of poems. The whole book was very child centered. I think it is trying to get kids to become more excited to read poems. Many times poems can be perceived as being read only by adults, so I liked how this book was really geared towards kids. The illustrations on the pages had very vivid, bright colors. The people on the pages don't look like normal people. They are almost like cartoons with green noses, green hair, and blue cheeks. All of the poems are about a school object or something you would see at school. Each poem is written a little different, some poems have a word per line, and others have many spaces in between each line. I would read this in my class for a poem unit, I think it's an eye catching book that would be fun for elementary students.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

This book was not what I expected. I was expecting it to be actual poems, and it's not. It just looks like poems. It even talks about this through out the book like on page 23 how poems have a distinct look to them and they may not be a poem but it looks like one because they are short and don't go all the way across a page. This was interesting to me. It is basically like he is writing in his journal to his teacher but making it appear as he is writing poetry. You can guess what her responses were because of his answers back but they aren't actually written. I kind of wish they were. At times he is also very blunt. At one point he says "And the other dogs in the cages get killed dead if nobody chooses them." What a morbid comment for a young boy to write. I like when he makes a picture poem of his yellow dog. I bet that took a lot of time for him.

Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi

I didn't like this book in comparison with So Far From the Bamboo Grove. I didn't think there was as much action, and it took a while to get into. It was a slower read for me than the other novel. However, it was interesting to see both sides of almost the same story, or atleast time frame. I think this would be great to teach in an upper grade class. I really liked reading both of the books and I would recommend this dual book project, it would be a great lesson on perspective. Sookan is a very strong character. I can't imagine being that courageous, leaving home, watching my grandpa die, taking care of my little brother, or pressing on while leaving my mother at the passport check. I also would be depressed to not be able to show my culture. Sookan can't speak Korean or dress how she wants, she puts on a complete act at school. In fact most of the children at that school do, they are repeating things they don't believe and getting hit with rulers if they don't abide by the rules. How awful! At ten years old Sookan was doing all of these things! These characters grow up so fast, but they had to it was there lifestyle and these things had to be done. Even though all of these things were happening to her she still had hope that she took from her Grandfathers words. ""Afer darkness, there will be light. The light cannot come without darkness. Better days are bound to come now.""

Duck Soup by Jackie Urbanovic

This book was only okay. It's about a duck, Max who is making his own soup for his friends to eat at dinner. I don't think kids would know what half of the foods and spices he is adding to his soup. I wouldn't have known what chives or parsley were at a young age reading this, but who knows maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. The pictures are pretty plain although the duck is really cute with his over sized chef hat on. The characters are quite dramatic in this story which I don't know if I like, but it would be easy to create a play from this book! Max's friends are hungry and ready to eat so they venture into the kitchen and can't find the Max. His pot of soup is still on the stove so they convince themselves that he fell into the soup. As they strain the soup in attempt to find Max they claim they see his eyeballs which are onions, his head which is a potato, and his feet which are carrots. After they are done straining and pouring the soup down the drain Max walks into the kitchen, he had run out to get more ingredients for his soup. They end up ordering pizza, which I think happens more often than not when people, or ducks in this matter, try to cook. I liked this book, but it wasn't one of my favorites I have ever read.

A Book of Sleep By Il Sung Na

Honestly I saw this book on the new books shelf and grabbed it because of the title. A Book of Sleep, and that's exactly what I wanted to do-go take a nap. It's very simple, and would be cute to read on a Monday morning to your class when everyone is tiered, or right before nap time to get the kids to wind down. The pictures are interesting. They use solid colors and then have designs in the animals skins like squiggles, flowers, and dashes ever so faintly. It's a cool idea. The pages are on a different type of paper than I am used to. It's a thicker paper and some pages almost feel rough, but it looks normal.

This book is about an owl who sleeps at the opposite time as all of the rest of the animals. This book shows how all animals sleep differently. Some animals sleep standing, some make noise, some are peaceful. The owl who does not sleep during the night like the others then sleeps during the day when the others are awake.