A Poem in Your Pocket

Thursday is Poem in your Pocket Day!  Carry a favorite poem all day and share it with your friends.  How many poems can you recite from memory?

This may let you know how old I am - not that I keep it a secret - but when I was in grade school, our classes had something called "Poem Study" almost every week.  We learned old standards, like Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" - (I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree..) and didactic poems designed to teach us values.  I particularly enjoyed the poems of James Whitcomb Riley.

I cannot remember any of these poems in entirety, just snippets here and there.  And, my meory, alas, is not sharp enough to start memorizing today.  Still I have a score of favorite poems and will have to pick one to carry around on Thursday.

Poetry

Here's a short poem for the month of April:

Peas

I should not plant the peas
inside this colored pack;
for if I do, it's true,
soon as I turn my back
every beast and bird
within a city block
will pluck each small green leaf
right off each skinny stalk.
I should not plant these peas.
It's just a waste, but still,
I WANT to plant these peas.

I will!

Fun kid's book sites

Catalogs from publishers??? Old hat!  Now the thing is book trailers and interactive pages online so that kids get to love a brand and want to buy it when they see it in a store.

Take a look at TOON books cartoon maker.  It's a simple enough graphics program, allowing children to pull elements from a popular series into a frame and add background and words to create their own cartoon.  Try it out.

Chronicle Books has added a book trailer to the page advertising their new big trucks book, Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site! Just scroll down to watch the video.

Simon and Schuster has created a page for the Cheers! series about a girl who is horrified to find out that she is relegated to the B cheerleading team.  Her life. (as she says) Is seriously. O-V-E-R.  The page has a playlist, an excerpt of the book, a trailer and party plans. Why not?

In the meantime, while book publishers scramble to find new ways to sell books, lawmakers are pushing ways to make it a lot harder for those books to make it into classrooms, public libraries and the homes of underprivileged children.   Exactly how we can insure that all American children get the food and resources they need to succeed is a huge worry.  So, I challenge my readers to write one letter - email or snail - to one lawmaker each day in the month of April, urging them to keep federal funds for education and health and wellness to poverty stricken children and districts IN the budget.

Thanks!  I'll let you know who I send MY letter to today.

April is Poetry Month

I have a lot on my mind this morning.  The state of poetry, the state of education, the state of the state budget...how do I put all these weighty concerns in one blog post?

Perhaps I should write a poem about my worries:

Feed me, the child said
But not just with bread.
I need words and birds
and love instead
Of texts and tests
that prove I'm best!
Feed me dreams!
Feed me streams
singing over shining stones;
Rockets winging through
space;
Hands brushing sand from ancient bones.
Stories and history, maps and mysteries,
Numbers that dance in elegant patterns.
Sit with me.

Feed me, the child said.
Share with me bread and time
And I will grow strong and climb and climb.
Feed me.

PS.  Ring of Solomon won the Big Kahuna Round of SLJ's Battle of the Kids' Books.  Do I know how to call them, or what?

BIG KAHUNA ROUND approaches

So, it has come down to this.  SLJ's Battle of the Kids' Books will end tomorrow. Kathi Appelt's Keeper and Jonathan Stroud's The Ring of Solomon meet in the final head-to-head match-up.  But wait!  What's this?  A THIRD contender?  Yes, Back from the Dead, A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner has risen to challenge the two finalists.

And what sage of the writing world has the enviable task of choosing among these three???  It is Richard Peck, Newbery winner and all round great storyteller.  Whew!  Better him than me, is what I'm thinking right now.

Ok, here's my take on these three books.  I didn't read the Ring of Solomon so it is a little crazy that I am cheering for that book.   That's how powerful the character of Bartimaeus, the djinni, is.  Stroud's humorous writing, the excessive but effective use of tongue-in-cheek footnotes and Bartimaeus' oddly honorable amorality, MUST all add up to a compelling read. My former partner-in-storytime, SC, has told me - and I trust her - that this book is better than all three of Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy books.  So that is the book I WANT to win.  That is the book I think will win.

Here's why.  A Conspiracy of Kings is a marvelous adventure, well-plotted with characters the reader cares about.  The world Turner creates is credible and detailed.

Keeper is a dreamy book with lush descriptions, not only of the seaside setting but also of the workings of the young girl's thoughts and hopes.

But neither of those books have as strong and as original a character as Bartimaeus.  Bartimaeus is the quintessential lovable rogue - funny, powerful and unexpected.  With all of his thousands of years of experience how could a handful of monarchs and a girl and her dog expect to compete?  I'm just saying!  Bartimaeus will rise victorious tomorrow - (I hope.)

Familiars

Stop me if you've heard this one!  An alley cat, a bluejay and a tree frog walk into a bar...  Nope, it's not a joke and although the three do walk into an inn, they don't actually walk into a bar.   These three are the main characters of a new book, and quite probably a new series, titled The Familiars, written by screenwriting partners, Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson.

Aldwyn is a black and white alley cat who hides from a bounty hunter in a pet shop that sells magical animals to wizards.  Before he has a chance to get out of the cage he has hidden in, Aldwyn is chosen by a boy named Jack.  Ahhhh, another boy and pet story - so cute.  Not so fast.

Soon after Aldwyn makes his home with Jack, two other young students and the old wizard Kalstaff, the humans are captured by evil forces.  The three familiars; Aldwyn, who has no magical powers to speak of, Skylar, who is a know-it-all bluejay and Gilbert, a tree frog,whose brain is always on food; are forced to go on a quest to find and save their humans.

There are a lot of formulaic elements here.  The three friends fall into the three most often used categories for buddy stories - one bright, one scrappy, one distracted by the here and now.  Aldwyn's lack of special qualities and his need to lie about it are a major part of the plot.  And that's a plot device that is used often in middle grade fiction - accepting oneself and finding value in oneself.

However, the writing flows so easily and the jokes are clever without being mean.  Aldwyn proves his mettle over and over again, even if he can't see the future or cast illusions.  Just who the evil master-mind behind the plot to kill the young human wizards turns out to be makes a very nice twist.

The ending leaves the door open for more adventures for these three heroes.  Readers of Erin Hunter's novels just might enjoy this mix of fantasy and animal adventure.  The book is slated to become a 3-D animated film, according to the jacket flap.  This one is fun to read and will be a popular movie.

Stories, stories and more stories

Tonight I told "funny" stories for the children and parents at Northampton Community College's Children's Center.  This was my fifth year in a row telling stories there.  The group was small and happy and they all thought my jokes were very funny.  YAY!  I love kids.

There was one particularly energetic little boy who told the "Interrupting Cow" Knock Knock joke so well, I was breathless with laughter and so was everyone else.  He was probably three.  A comic genius is what I am thinking.  We had rafts of "homemade" jokes and riddles, so convoluted and simply silly that I can't remember them but here is an approximation;  "Why did the Princess cross the road and her mother said 'no' and Jack's mother yelled?"  "I don't know."  "Because she wanted Cinderella." 

This had come right after a "real" joke that mentioned Cinderella, one of my stories was about Jack and his mother and everyone knows that mothers don't let their children cross the road.  Perfect sense and the teller thought it was hilarious.  I did, too.

Telling stories is so much fun.  I think I will tell stories forever and ever.