"Bronzeville Boys and Girls" by Gwendolyn Brooks

This book is a collection of different poems that celebrates the "joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of childhood". This book is about childhood from all walks of life, whether it be Bronzeville, Chicago or some other neighborhood around the world. This book illuminates all the emotions and experiences that children go through as they grow and develop. Some of the poems are about aunts and uncles coming to visit, "adult" parties, tea parties, dreams, being taken care of when your sick, , church, rich neighbors, dead gold fish, playing in the snow, being poor, claustrophobic from the city, babysitters, and much, much more! Many of these poems include repeating lines or words, and have a lot of rhyming also. The pictures are really neat. The illustrations look "child-like" which makes it even more meaningful because it has this child vibe throughout the book. Even through the writing, I hear the voice coming from a child. There are many obvious reasons this book could be useful in the classroom but one thing that set this book apart for me was how most of the illustrations and poems are about these kids growing up in the city of Bronzeville and how they experienced childhood. It would be interesting to have students read this book and then ask them to write a poem about their childhood. I bet this book would spark some ideas!

"Flamingos on the Roof" by Calef Brown

As I started reading this picture/poetry book, my first impression was that the poems are random. It includes poems about the ABC's, Flamingos on the Roof, Bob, Bug Show, Medusa's sister Sally, Biscuits in the Wind, Soggy Circus, Peas, Birthday Lights, Crystal Bowling Ball, Martian Men etc. I think this book would be a good tool to help students generate ideas of what they can write about. Although this book has different poems about random ideas, the ideas are everyday things that people see and can connect to. One poem that I really liked was called "Ten Cent Haiku" The poem was about a man sitting down to write a haiku about a dime he found:

"Shiny Silver Friend
I will never let you go
Look! An ice cream truck!"

As you can tell, this haiku was somewhat random. However, I really like the randomness because it shows that poetry can be about anything and can be written in so many different ways.

"America Is" by Louise Borden

Louise Borden answers the question of "What it's like to live in America" in this poetry book. This book has great historical and background information about how America came to be. The poems make references to the American flag and what it stands for, as well as the pledge of allegiance and the star spangled banner. The poems are about the coasts, the different climates, suburbs, rural areas and the city. The poems incorporate what kinds of people and different jobs are available in America. The author had included a very important poem about the first native people of America. I think this is so important because many kids don't really understand how we took over America.... The book also covers the importance of diversity and how there are all kinds of people living in America who are "one family and one team". "America is a land where we are FREE. To live. to speak out. to worship. to work. to play. to follow our dreams".

I think this is a great book about America. It is a positive book and doesn't touch on the disparities that we have in America but accentuates all the great things about America. I loved the illustrations. Each individual page looked like a painting and had a lot of work put into it. This is a great introduction book if your talking to students about America in general and what it encompasses.

"Good Dog" by Maya Gottfried

I love dogs, and haven't had my own for like eight years! so when I saw this poetry picture book about dogs I had to read it! The poems are written in all different forms and describe a different dog breed on each page. Some of the poems look like lists. Some of the poems have sequential rhyming. Some lines are staggered on the page. Some of the poems include repetition. I like how the poems represent the dogs behavior. For example, the Chihuahua's poem is short and defiant and the actual poem reminded me of a chihuahua. One line about the chihuahua is " I chased that hound, and then he hid. I may be small, but I am swift." Or another line from a bulldog poem was " All I really want is a hug and a bone". I really liked how all the poems describe the nature and behavior of each dog.

One of my favorite poems is in a letter format from a dog to their "person" and it's an apology for staining the piano bench and getting hair all over, and chewing on their leather shoes.

I think adults as well as children would get a laugh out of this book and it teaches you about different kinds of dogs and what kind of behaviors to expect of them. This is a great poem book that I would definitely use in my classroom to show students all the different types of poems that they can possibly do on their own.

"How to (un)cage a girl" by Francesca Lia Block

This is a young adult book for ages 14+ and I highly recommend keeping these poems for this age level audience or above. There is some graphic language and some graphic scenes that may not be suitable for even 14 year old's unless they are mature and can handle this kind of material. This author writes about growing up as a girl dealing with love, loss, happiness, heartbreak, insecurities and how she views herself as she grows and matures. Personally I had a rough 8th and 9th grade year, so a book like this would probably make me feel like I was not alone if I had the opportunity to read something like this when I was younger. Many girls go through these experiences and this is just one way to express your feelings.

I am going to share one of the many poems I enjoyed reading from this author.

Pain is like an onion:

remove one layer and the next is there
keep peeling, my beloved
peeling and chopping
putting in the pan
fry it to translucency
and eat it
let it digest
it's only been a year and a half
since he took your heart from your chest
peeled it chopped it fried it ate it spit it out

and eventually a new one will grow back
eventually
the tears
will stop

I felt like most of the poems that were written in this book had a lot of emotion and meaning behind the words. I know how hard it is to go through middle school and high school and even though it may seem unimportant and silly now, those trials and obstacles that we faced at the time were not easy to go through.

"Love that Dog" by Sharon Creech

I absolutely loved this short novel about Jack! His character made me think of how many young kids feel uneasy about writing poetry and writing in their Language arts classroom. From personal experience I always thought poetry had to look a certain way and that caused anxiety for me because I didn't really know how to write "good" poetry. For example many poets write stanzas or short lines, and that's perhaps why Jack would write down his thoughts in this format. the book offers different ways that people write poetry including poems that rhyme, poems that don't rhyme, poems that look like the object you are describing, poems with lines of repetition etc. I think this book teaches kids and everyone that poetry can be written in all different ways and can be written about ANYTHING.

I appreciated the progress through out the book as Jack builds confidence in himself. At first he wants his teacher to keep his work anonymous. Once he gets positive feedback and realizes that what he is writing is important and is "good" poetry, he starts to come out of his shell a little bit and lets the teacher put his name on his work to show the class. Through different poets the teacher introduced to the class, Jack really started to like one poet and author in particular named Mr. Walter Dean Myers. When Jack took Mr. Walter Dean Myer's style of writing and applied it to his own stories, he was able to create some very interesting poems. I think it's important for teachers to model different examples and show students that poetry can be written in so many different ways. (Which this author did include different poetry at the back of the book that the teacher used throughout the unit--very useful!)

When Jack started writing with the notion that an audience may be listening he had found a sense of purpose. When Jack wrote to Mr. Walter Dean Myers he found another purpose or function of writing. Even though authors or poets might not always give students the response they are looking for, this is an example that shows that sometimes they do respond and it can be so rewarding!

This was a very powerful book and I really really enjoyed reading it. I was so excited for Jack and his class to have Mr. Walter Dean Myers come in and read some of his poetry to the class.

"Lost and Found" by Rebecca Doughty

Have you ever lost anything? I think everyone can relate to the term "lost and found". This is a story about a little girl named Lucy who loses personal things throughout her day. This book is about losing and finding things. There is a rhyming beat throughout most of the text. For example "Getting off the bus, I lost my snack. It must have fallen out of my pack". I really like this book because it's simple and it's a theme that most kids can relate to. After doing a mini lesson on "brainstorming to develop an idea" I realized that this book would work for this too. When Lucy gets grounded she goes and looks under her bed because she is bored and she finds a whole list of things under her bed! It also could probably spark an idea for readers and writers because it discusses so many different things from items such as her lost dog to her toothbrush or cowboy hat. It's a simple book, but I think many young readers would like this book. I did!