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Friday, January 31, 2020

ncte poetry notables part 3

Welcome to my next round of mini-reviews of books selected by the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry Committee.  Our brief is to select outstanding collections, anthologies, picture books and verse novels for children aged 3 to 13.  Many of our most interesting discussions were about the verse novels, especially in light of the age range.  Our criteria document says that an outstanding verse novel

~ Is a narrative told in poetic form
~ Demonstrates excellence in writing and emotional impact: does the poetry "create images, express 
   feelings, and stir emotions"?  (Cullinan and Galda) 
~ Uses its format to enrich the story in some way 

                               Galda, L., Cullinan, B.E., & Sipe, L.R. (2010). Literature and the Child. Seventh Edition. 
                               Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning

Each of the books we selected met all these criteria to a certain degree, and I found that I have pretty high standards for the 2nd and 3rd items on that list. To me a successful verse novel should SOUND like poetry when you read it aloud, even if, of all the poetry forms, it is least likely to be read aloud; and the poetry on the page should look and work in a more crafted way than prose just broken into shorter line lengths.  Let's see how two of my favorites accomplish this.

THE MOON WITHIN
by Aida Salazar
illustrated by Joe Cepeda
Arthur A. Levine Books, 2019

Celi is an 11-year-old girl with “a Mexican side and a Caribbean side,” confronting head-on from page 1 the universal experience of a girl's changing body.  In four sections titled as phases of the moon, Celi struggles and stretches to navigate the tensions between body privacy and body positivity, between old cultural ways and current cultural norms, between her love for the people she's always known and her expanding social circles.

This book covers ALL the bases and somehow does it gracefully:  not only does Celi come to accept the first-blood Moon Ceremony that her Mima has planned for her; she finds it in herself to support and defend her best friend Magda as Magda discovers that he is really Marco.  Celi defends Marco when the boy she's crushing on over social media makes fun of him. Throughout, the sound of Afro-Latino music, drumming and dance are foremost: Celi's Papi and Marco are both drummers, and Celi is a dancer in her community bomba performance group.

Papi welcomes me with a nod
turns up his playing
makes brighter sounds
round sounds
colored sounds
a timeless talking unlike
Mima's or Juju's.

I just dance.

Suddenly he switches rhythms
to a samba
and I fall deep in feet movement
a conga
and I climb spirit high from side to side
a bomba
and I twirl and mark my
beat with my arms
that Papi catches
effortlessly, in sync.

I don't see that
Mima and Juju
are both standing
at the door witnessing
with Papi
the closest I have ever
come to clarity
lighter and
as unstuck
as I could ever be.

This book is a direct successor to Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret, giving voice to any girl's uncertainties of identity, but Aida Salazar brings layers and inflections that break that old conversation wide open for 21st century young people.  Some on our committee were a little rocked by the frankness of the language and themes for 11-year-olds (me too!), but as I pointed out, this is the book the 5th graders at my school need, will be passing around the class.  It is frankly, beautifully uncomfortable, creating lasting images through varied languages, rhythms and emotions, and resolves with satisfying clarity.

ALL OF ME
by Chris Baron
Feiwel and Friends, 2019

If Celi's problem is that her Mima sees her all too clearly, Ari Rosensweig's problem is the opposite. 

The life in my head seems
so different from the life outside,
where I am so big
that everyone stares,
but no one sees the real me.

At first glance ALL OF ME seems like a single-issue story, and an important "own voices" one. Questions about body size and body image are for boys too, and this novel is unflinching in expressing the anguish of being a fat kid, a fat BOY.  But through straightforward storytelling, filled with raw emotion, Ari finds that he is far more complex than he himself realized.

In this several books play a big role. Mysterious World by Arthur C. Clark, a catalog of strange and apocryphal creatures are a touchstone for Ari, and their influences are seen in the population of little clay trolls he and his stalwart friend Pick make at his sculptor mother's beachside studio, where Ari leaves behind his old life for the summer, tackles a new way to eat, and finds another way to be.  He carries this with him to New York for a visit with his father.

I stretch out on my bed,
my body a little tighter now,
skin against my muscles,
stomach flatter,
slow breathing.
No voices,
no fire to burn
or hands to dream
            of holding.
No trolls to carve
or stories to write
or gates to lock,
or trash to take out.

No giant terra-cotta
demon spirits, Melinda,
or angels or alien talismans,
no people up and down the streets,
or beach sirens
or pounding waves.
No sleeping on a camping mat
beneath freshly painted murals.
Just moments
          with no eyes on me.

What a relief, to have no eyes but your own on you.  Ari's journey is packed with characters, details, and events that never overwhelm his painstaking, personal progress towards putting his pieces together.  Adult support for Ari comes in the form of doctors and a rabbi who help him separate from the hardest parts of his tangled family life, and the narrative comes across as deeply honest, complicated and true.  I'm always up for more fireworks in terms of format, but Chris Baron's simpler structures carry the complex interlocking motifs well, and the book is successful in every way.

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Join Jone Rush MacCulloch at her blog for the roundup this week, and happy reading!


Friday, January 24, 2020

ncte poetry notables part 2

Welcome to a warming couple of reviews of poetry collections for the youngest readers, both selected by the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry Committee! The whole process of reading through the submissions was a treasure hunt, so I'll start with...

FINDING TREASURE: A Collection of Collections
by Michelle Schaub
illustrated by Carmen Saldana
(Charlesbridge, 2019)

Best for readers K-3, this collection of 18 poems tells the story of one main character, a girl whose teacher has asked the class to share something they collect. But what is her passion?  In her exploration of the collections of her family and friends--everything from buttons to baseball cards, from coins to clocks--our narrator considers what she might love enough to collect, curate and share...and in the final poem she decides:
"My medley isn't common,
nor is it very strange.
It isn't something that you count,
sort, or rearrange."
It's POETRY!  Whether her collection is the very poems in this book, written in her own voice, or a collection of favorite poems from outside this book, is unclear and probably doesn't matter.  Throughout, Schaub's language is effortlessly readable in a variety of free verse and rhyme-and-meter poems. She successfully portrays both the collectors' devotions and the delights of their chosen objects, including SMILES.  There are plenty of these in Saldana's detailed cartoon illustrations, and plenty for readers.


I'M THE BIG ONE NOW: Poems about Growing Up
by Marilyn Singer
illustrated by Jana Christy
(WordSong 2019)

Another collection that hits a sweet spot for ages 4-8, Singer's poems are filled with her characteristic wordplay and celebrate the common but exciting developmental accomplishments of young children.  With titles like "First Good Snap, First Good Whistle" and "Big-Kid Teeth," this book has a poem for all the ordinary leaps that are common to all kids; there are also poems about growing into more specific experiences, like "My Own Seat on the Plane" and "Cannonball."

Yesterday I stood and stared
              at the blue bottom
              of this big pool.
Yesterday, and the day before,
              and the day before that.

But today,
              today.... 
Like a coconut, I drop
             with a smashing splash,
touch my toes to that blue bottom,
             and, in a flash, up I pop. 

The essential business of learning to ride a bike comes in three installments, "Trying to Ride" Parts 1, 2 and 3, likewise highlighting the way that we all learn things bit by bit over time, and effort is usually involved.

Beyond these strengths, this collection is also notable for its variety of companion poems, such as the quiet "In the Theatre" and the noisy "At the Ballpark," its poems for two voices, for its lengthier poems and its brief, triumphant final word on the back cover:

Tying My Shoes

Guess what, you toes!
I have learned to make bows!
******************************************

Now that I have done my due diligence as Poetry Committee Member, these books go to PreK with me TODAY so I can do due diligence as a Poetry Teacher!  Meanwhile you can go to Kat Apel's blog for the second Australian-hosted Poetry Friday roundup of the month--which is just as well because there continues to be good and bad news from that beleaguered continent.

Stay tuned for four more reviews of NCTE Poetry Notables in the next few weeks!



Friday, January 17, 2020

ncte poetry notables 2020

What a terrifically fun and serious responsibility it has been this year to begin a 3-year term on the NCTE Children's Poetry Awards Committee!  We read all summer and into the fall, wrassled through our deliberations at the NCTE Convention in Baltimore in November, and at the start of this month released our longer-than-ever list of notable poetry books and novels-in-verse.


The good news is that there were so many outstanding titles that we couldn't fit our list onto two sides of paper, so I invite you to wallow and revel in the glorious abundance, with something for every taste!  After the list, I'll highlight a few that were my particular favorites.





Fabulous, amiright?!  Among these many wonders, a few stood out for me (time now only for the briefest of descriptions, but you can trust me on these!), and over the next weeks I'll share little reviews of six others that I'm charged with writing for School Library Journal.


two middle school girls figure themselves
out through a surprising friendship: true characters
Emmy discovers her particular genius
and we learn some Javascript: wow format!
All of Me | Chris Baron | Macmillan
Ari struggles with the burden of weight
and survives crises with wry humor
wildly successful anthology of "other" voices;
for older readers and all adults
Waking Brain Cells – Page 3 – "I like nonsense, it wakes ...
how do I love thee? a modern, metaphorically
challenging RUNAWAY BUNNY 
30 Must-Read Diverse Children's Books From The First Half ...
sweet-gorgeous, book-length poem
honoring that reading feeling we can't resist
poems at the edgy imaginations of
very young children: "cute" need not apply
Hawksbill Promise: The Journey of an Endangered Sea Turtle (Tilbury House Nature Book) ebook by Mary Beth Owens
ancient Antiguan tree narrates the challenging
life cycle of hawksbill turtles

















































Our host today is none other than my dear friend and CP Catherine at Reading to the Core.  I'm sorry to hear that she's under the weather, but her #haikuforhope are very healthy indeed!  See you there!

EXTRA EXTRA for later arrivals: don't forget that Wednesday, April 22 is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and our next opportunity to build a very big voice for #ClimateAction.  Go here to learn more.


Friday, January 10, 2020

happy green new year






As I have mentioned before, I've labeled myself a climate activist, and if there's ANY One Little Word that deserves sustained attention it's CLIMATE.  So bear with me as I use my #PoetryFriday posts also as #FridaysForFuture posts, as #FireDrillFriday posts.

My principal role as a climate activist isn't, of course, to be a scientist or even a striker, but to be a communicator, a teacher, a poet, so here is today's little nudge to action: according to my friends at Elders Climate Action, pro-environment citizens are actually LESS likely to get out and vote!  So ECA has gotten together with the Environmental Voter Project to PROMOTE THE VOTE.  They are training volunteers, including me, to use our cell phones to text pro-environment voters, state by state, primary by primary, and get them to use their voice and vote.  Here's the email I received this week.  I'm excited to sit in the comfort of my own home and use my expensive mobile phone plan to make an impact! 

Greetings-

You are receiving this email because you have registered as a volunteer with Elders Promote the Vote. ECA and the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) are working together to contact millions of pro-environment voters, especially those who need encouragement to get out to the polls. We have already done a lot. In 2018 and 2019, ECA/Promote the Vote volunteers completed more than 650,000 voter contacts. Now, we have a volunteer group of more than 140 people and growing fast!

As part of this Promote the Vote volunteer force, you give us the potential to make two to three million voter contacts before Election Day 2020, and generate tens of thousands of pro-environment votes that would not otherwise be cast.

Starting in late January, Promote the Vote will really gear up. EVP will be generating voter lists at a rapid pace for us to work with. The primary season kicks off with Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina in February, Super Tuesday on March 3rd, and various primaries continuing through June. We can look forward to almost 10 months of a high demand for our services leading up to Election Day on November 3rd.

In anticipation of all this activity, we are planning several on-line training sessions for working with the Hustle texting app, and a very special national call in January. The national call features Nathaniel Stinnett, founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project. This will be an excellent opportunity to learn more about EVP's innovative approach to identifying environmental voters and persuading them to vote in every election.

Save the date for this informative call: Tuesday, January 28th at 7PM (ET). Stay tuned for instructions on how to participate.

We have also scheduled 5 on-line orientation and training sessions. Please plan to attend one of these if you are new to Promote the Vote, or if you want a refresher. The trainings run about 90 minutes and include plenty of time for Q&A.

Tuesday, Jan. 14 12:30-2:00 PM (ET)

Wednesday, Jan. 22 7:00-8:30 PM (ET)
Friday, Jan. 24 12:30-2:00 PM (ET)
Wednesday, Feb. 5 4:00-5:30 PM (ET)
Monday, Feb. 10 1:00-2:30 PM (ET)

Please register for any of these 5 training sessions here. You will receive specific instructions for participating, and the latest version of the Volunteer Orientation Guide.  Thank you for being part of this campaign to activate pro-environment voters. We will keep you informed as things develop.

And ICYMI, I had an interesting encounter at Costco yesterday. End of Climate PSA!
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"In January it's so nice, while slipping on the sliding ice..." 
 CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE, Maurice Sendak, 1962

The 12 months of the year make a very fine organizer for a collection of poetry.  I like ONCE AROUND THE SUN by Bobbi Katz (Harcourt, 2006), HERE COMES THE YEAR by Eileen Spinelli (Henry Holt 2002), and WINTER FRIENDS by Mary Quattlebaum (Doubleday, 2005) is full of nice moments. Here are a few January-appropriate poems that might be new or forgotten to you, including one by me from PUMPKIN BUTTERFLY.

January | John Updike

The days are short,
The sun a spark,
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.

Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor.
Milk bottles burst
Outside the door.

The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees of lace.

The sky is low.
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.

from ONCE AROUND THE SUN
from HERE COMES THE YEAR



















winter haiku from
LION OF THE SKY | Laura P. Salas

we are knitted twins,
soft as kittens, warm as hugs,
waiting to hold hands

Wordsong 2009, illustrated by Jenny Reynish


(right) from WINTER FRIENDS







frost | Valerie Worth

How does
The plain
Transparency
Of water

Sprout these
Lacy fronds
And plumes
And tendrils?

And where,
Before window-
Panes, did
They root

Their lush
Crystal forests,
Their cold
Silver jungles?









Our host today is living in another season--a scary fire season--that reminds us all to do every little thing we can to connect our daily, hourly, jerky-buying choices to global climate effects.  Thanks to Sally Murphy for the round-up today!
 

Thursday, January 2, 2020

to word, or not to word?


It’s that time of year--or even that time of decade--when our thoughts may turn to One Little Word. I'm uncertain where the idea of choosing a single word rather than a RESOLUTION originated, but at the Two Writing Teachers blog, Stacy Shubitz described the One Little Word practice thusly in 2011:

"Instead of thinking about a new year’s resolution for 2012, consider thinking about one little word you’ll live by this coming year. Living with one little word as your guide throughout an entire year provides you with more clarity."


So this month the Sunday Poetry Swaggers' challenge is to reflect, in poetry, on the question of whether “to Word” in 2020. Each of us has a different history with OLW and of course various feelings about the usefulness of selecting a word to guide our daily living through the coming year.

It seems my own OLW journey began in 2015. From the beginning, I resisted settling on just one word, immediately revising my first choice, LIGHT, to REVISE, which conveniently left open all kinds of possibilities. https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2015/01/revision.html 

In 2016 I must have completely forgotten about the whole idea of One Little Word. There is no bloggival evidence that I even THOUGHT of choosing One Little Word.

In 2017 I eschewed a single word for THREE Little Words (always a greedy one, me). They were READY. STEADY. GO. https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2017/01/inaugural-3lw.html Fancy my paying enough attention to them to return in September, a full 9 months later, to see how the New Year’s Baby had grown! https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2017/09/return-of-3lw-and-burma-shave.html

 In 2018, it would appear, I quietly and deliberately did not choose One Little Word, the unhelpful burden of which I commented on the next year in 2019 when I exchanged OLW for ODT, One Difficult Truth.That choice did me a world of good throughout the year. https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2019/01/not-olw-but-odt.html

So it is perhaps unsurprising that now, with 2020 hindsight, I stop pretending that One Little Word will ever suit my greedy, undisciplined, spatter-focused personality. 

******************************************* 

Dear Words, ALL Words, 

I love how you are  
multitudinous, 
pulchritudinous,  
allowing me the latitude 
to utter any attitude. 
I need not stoop to platitudes-- 
your precision’s magnitudinous-- 
and so I’m full of gratitude 
to you, Words, for your plenty. 

I don’t think even twenty 
of you, fifty or a hundred 
could see me through a year, 
could peek at me, speak at me, Latin 
and Greek at me.  Hello?! I’m aglow
with your abundance, portmanteaux
and loanwords, cognates and calques;
at your smorgasbord of choices
my greedy mouth rejoices.

So it does not behoove me--
I don’t think it improves me--
to choose a single one of you to guide 
me through my year. Instead
I choose you all, each of you in your time,
momentary, legendary, literary, prime,
ordinary, necessary, abstract and applied
to all the shades and grades, 
the hints and hues of meaning

to which my heart is leaning,
on which my brain’s caffeining,
by which my soul is stirred.
I even choose all of you words 
my ear has never heard!
To choose just one--One Little Word--
paupers me, stoppers me, is resistibly 
absurd. I announce my renouncement 
of One Little Word. 


draft (c) Heidi Mordhorst 2019

************************************
All that being said, you know that I'm continuing to focus my attention on CLIMATE this year, both as the fundamental issue of this decade and as the foundation of my classroom work.  

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see what the Sunday Poetry Swaggers are thinking about their OLWs this year. Do visit each of them to find out.
 
-Catherine at Reading to the Core -Margaret at Reflections on the Teche -Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone 

-Linda at A Word Edgewise


Our host for the first round-up of 2020 is Carol at Carol's Corner. I wonder if she has a word in mind?