How wonderful to focus a whole post on one color! I would love to see a series of posts like this, each with a different color theme. I’ll be on the lookout for the first two books you mention. Already own Hailstones and Halibut Bones– it’s a brilliant classic, isn’t it?

Michelle
Thank you for the monochromatic ideer! Hadn’t thought of that.
I hope you enjoy GREEN ROOM & BIG GREEN.
I feel a shimmering silver good that you know HAILSTONES, as it’s been ages & ages since
someone I’ve mentioned it to also already read it.

Thank you for your witty, Today’s Little Ditty, blog.

Thanks for sharing so much of your process here, Jan, including the necessary “clunky” phases getting a work to its luscious, published incarnation! (I really like the typing cat, too. I have one of those, but she wanders away from the keyboard whenever she feels like it, no matter where I am in a project….)

Ah.. the on-strike feline syndrome.
Often occurs right at deadline.
It’s tough to do all the keyboard work yourself.
But so glad you type on without proper paw strength Robyn.

I’m not going to ‘run away’, but enjoy my spring break here at home & love it. What a lovely poem, & interesting collection you are making. I hope you’ll share as the list grows.

I just finished reading Joan Bransfield Graham’s picture book, The Poem That Will Not End. It’s about young poet Ryan O’Brian who can’t stop writing poems.

A Big thanks for visiting & for this great lead.
THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END is a mighty intriguing title.
Sounds like a circular story?
I will look into it – want to learn about the young poet character, Ryan, who Joan Bransfield Graham created.

Glad to meet you this way, Buffy

Splendid about a perfect staycation.
Our own region is fantastic enough to vacation here & we do that all the time.

Two places to find the results of this project -
Here, mebe at the end of April.
And Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup has kindly agreed to post a link, I think that will be
April 1. Glad you asked.

Thank you for visiting Linda – Happy Spring Break!

This book is wonderful because the poet writes in many forms. It is a great instructional book as well as fun poetry. You MUST read this one.

I’m listening to a YA book right now, Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. The main character, Rose, writes poetry.

Can’t wait to see your final list!

POL is an amazing art form. I sometimes have “run away” days but I always end up staying. = )

Hi Joyce,
Can you share the title of the book – unless you are meaning SALTING THE OCEAN?
thanks for visiting.

Jan/Bookseedstudio

Mary Lee,
Well first, many thanks for helping me out Thursday with an early Poetry Friday link.
What is ROSE UNDER FIRE about. I’m glad you mentioned a YA poetry-creating character. This is actually part of what spurs me to consider poetry-writing characters in picture books & chapter books, where this aspect of a character makes fewer appearances.
Poems are introduced in kindergarten, so it seems to follow that more characters in picture books could be expected to be poets, such as Calpurnia in THE SECRET RIVER.

Thank you for visiting Bookseedstudio!

Jan

I clicked the link and wow, what simple, yet powerful illustrations. Thanks Jan!

I have heard Carole speak as well. A fine lady.

There is no picture book without the pictures & SUGAR HILL proves that. The artist’s process of sketch into art seems to me to evolve in the same way the writer’s words are created, scratched, pulled, pushed, redone. It would be fun for young writers to have a copy in their hands of a mighty fine picture book, like SUGAR HILL, where in the back, original sketches & original manuscript text pages for that very p.b., were also nestled, for them to use as a mentor text. Thank you for always visitng Bookseedstudio, Adrian.

Love this poem, Jan. Thanks so much for sharing it!
Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your hubby.

Thank you Carmela. I hope your weekend was lovely, too. I am so glad you visited Bookseedstudio.

I read this book to the Front Porch Library kids regularly. This book makes poetry (and love) so accessible. Happy belated Valentine’s Day Jan!

I may have even gifted it to FPL, as the illustrator of it is my pal…
This Valentine Time 2014 was quite sublime. Glad you are back from the frozen North but I know you guys had a mighty fine time.

Jan, I always feel as if your reach is so much greater than mine. You lift your head, look around, and find things I don’t. Thanks for putting those things in my path, ensuring that I see them. And isn’t it wonderful that a story like “The Little Prince” can take on a life of its own, making the too-short life of its author forever meaningful?

Ever since I learned that one of our cousins in Italy is planning their first baby’s nursery around Saint-Exupery’s THE LITTLE PRINCE artwork & sky elements for the walls & ceiling, it isn’t far from my thoughts. Then through my daily comforting ritual of my hand moving between the rustle of the print newspapers & the lift of the cuppa mate tea or green tea (if needed, the jolting caffeine content of organic, fair-trade coffee) I found the story about The Morgan. I’m pleased it pleases you.

Coming from New Jersey we have very similar stories. Hanging on my wall is the paper that certified that my Swedish grandfather, his mother and brothers had been cleared through Ellis Island. My brother-in-law, Paul Rosenthal did all the interpretive writing for the refurbished Ellis Island, the stories retold by him in the signage that accompanies the displays, but as you say, the stories of arrival in America are myriad and some very sad. One that stuck with me was the culling of the unfit, who were marked with a chalk X on the back of a garment, and how one such reject got by when someone near her in line told her to turn her coat inside out. Good post!

Adrian, the deeply felt family tapestry you share – has it made it into your fiction for young readers? I enjoy the family vignettes at Slow Dance Journal. I’m thinking how these stories might be a jumping off place for a historical fiction novel for your young readers. Just a thot…Thank you for reading & commenting here on Poetry Friday in Bookseedstudio. It’s always a joy to have you visit.

Hi Jan! Thanks for being a volunteer reader — what a blessing you are! I’m happy to learn of little Lucy and will go searching for more of Ashley’s work. As for your poem, I love “lappy fellow” and adore the ending of wearing him ear to ear — a subtle reference to a Cheshire cat grin, perhaps but also the feeling of kitty ear warmers! The only word I’d reconsider is “all.” It seems to be filling a beat, and you might make better use of it with another playful word or image. Maybe something like, “When Mr. Kitty is melty, mellow”? Good luck with the contest!

Keri, hello there.
Thank you for everything. Thanks for your lovely response & the critique of “Cat Hat”. So rewarding, the thought of the Cheshire grin. I like your melty. I will have fun figuring this out. “All” is not carrying enough weight here.
I hope readers will want to visit your posts & recommendations at Keri Recommends -
http://kerirecommends.com/2014/01/09/poetry-friday–sister-foxs-field-guide-to-the-writing-life-by-jane-yolen.aspx

Hi, Jan! I’ve loved Ashley Wolff books forever, and loved getting to meet her up at a Highlights Founders illustrators workshop. Thanks for sharing these wonderful poems. Your kitty-as-headwear image is delightful!
Robyn Hood Black
Life on the Deckle Edge blog
http://www.robynhoodblack.com/blog.htm

Thanks back at you, Keri.
I have enjoyed discovering your site: Keri Recommends http://www.kerirecommends.com/

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I love the way you describe it: “Poetry Friday is a weekly community of readers and writers in children’s literature. They remember their own childhood joy in knowing poetry. And now they are passing it on.”

Very nice! Thanks for sharing this. And like Mary Lee said, Welcome to Poetry Friday.

How fun to read about “muggy heat” in January, as we struggle with record cold here in the Midwest.
And thanks for the link to our TeachingAuthors blog, Jan. I’m thinking you may have meant to link directly to April’s list of the Cybli’s poetry finalists, since not every post on our blog is poetry related. That would be:
http://www.teachingauthors.com/2014/01/the-magnificent-seven-cybil-poetry-book.html

Thank you for visiting MaryLee & these fine thoughts. I look forward to seeing your link on the PF list.

Thanks for mentioning those opposites Carmela. Hope it warmed you a little! Also, thanks much for the URL correction. I’m sorry I had it wrong.

In my neighborhood the long days of vacation from school, and kids with working parents has generated a spate of kids going through mailboxes, even stealing Christmas gifts–finding torn wrapping paper dropped by a mailbox raider just floored me–but we are a community, and tomorrow, at the Front Porch Library I will stress one of the points you made. Mail tampering is a federal offense.

Community is fragile and when shared values, like respect for the mail is not being taught at home, those of us who love our neighborhoods have to do our best to get the message across.

Thanks for the beautiful post Jan. And thanks for going over to black for the background. It is much easier on the eyes.

I may pick another background but simple black is back for now.

Thanks for your ideas on this blog Adrian. And for your continuing kind words.

For children who don’t receive personal mail, there must be a disconnect about respecting
what those boxes mean. And yes of course, if no one ever taught them the rules, it could seem as normal as turning over a log by the side of the road, to see what was underneath.

We are back from Atlanta where by chance out & about, I met a retired educator who operates a more informal version of FPL that she calls Sally’s Library. She was delighted to hear about you & she may get in touch with me via this blog & therefore you, because she will see that you have commented. Good luck with your never ending excellent modeling for the neighbor children.

A cold here for me, nice company here for us all & some miles to go on the pavement before I call the Holidays ended!

Another tree post for you to enjoy:
http://writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/time-to-decorate-the-tree/

Thanks so much, Jan, for the shout out and for sharing your lovely photographs and memories!

My earliest tree memory is of a gigantic quince (I know, they are normally not gigantic) in the yard of my first house. Each neighborhood child had a branch of their own. My mother said that the shoes and bare feet that hung down were, to her, the best possible fruit.

Merry Christmas writing pal.

You bring on sites that I don’t know & are worth investigating, so thank you!

And a Fa la la la la to you & your lovely family.

On this lovely thought, I think there is a Haiku poem in there for you.

Thanks for sharing these, Jan. I especially like the idea of being grateful the “impressive alligator” is on paper.
And love the post title!

You’re welcome & Thanku for your thoughts Carmela.

Want to learn how to Thanku?
Here is the Teaching Authors blog that started me on Thankus:
http://www.teachingauthors.com/2011/10/thankus-poetry-friday-and-national-day.html

Hi Jan, I met you through the SinC map. I am a fellow Floridian author. I indie authored a much less acclaimed book, and currently have a crime fiction novel in the works. The novel is in eversion only and I have the paperback coming out soon, because I, too, am a lover of paper, still. For my birthday my husband bought me a Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus with print so fine I have to put on dime store readers to read it Ha! Although I was born, raised, and educated in Jimmy Carter country, I currently reside in Orlando and love everything Florida, especially what I refer to as “Old World Florida”. I very much look forward to reading “She Sang Promise”, and am pleased to make your acquaintance.

Thank you, SK. I’m so pleased that you’re going to read about Betty Mae Jumper.
You might enjoy the area history museums which not everyone gets to – with the other distractions of Orlando. Also if you visit Tampa, the Tampa Bay History Center is a treasure.

Thanks for the tips. I have been to a few art museums and am particularly fond of the Morse Museum. We have a folk history museum here in Orlando, but I will certainly look for the others. I have only seen the Dali in Tampa,/St Pete.

The spooky woods is the best. How did you get the trees to gnarl like that?

What a beautiful post, Jan! Words and reading are powerful–you and I know it to be true, but it is so good to see it confirmed in the world. It is my hope for my Front Porch Library that I am bringing my neighborhood kids to the foot of Mount Everest and that they will want to climb.

I thought about the plucky young ones of your neighborhood program as I posted this Adrian so thank you for this reply. She is someone who could be beautifully lost in books, like they are.
But also, when her parents were hesitant to take care of her childhood diabetes, she took matters in her own hands, literally. Gave herself the injections at age eight. Plucky, plucky.

Jan, I love the pumpkin candles flickering and the footsteps quickening. Those both breathe autumn to me!

Thank you with spine tingles on top, Laurie !

How nice that this post takes the form of free verse. It is really charming as a piece of writing and an enticing introduction to a wonderful book. Brava, Jan!

you made my week with this!

We all travel blind in this process, don’t we? We hold our hands out in front of us hoping we get to touch a part of the elephant we can describe. Good luck to you and me both–and to anyone with the audacity to put a story on paper.

Lovely, Adrian.

The notes from the kids are the best, original spellings and all. (Actually, the original spellings are much better than the plain old predictable correct spellings us adults are stuck with).

Hay – eye em wit ewe!

Bravo! How wonderful that you and Paolo made the trip to Italy. Like Paolo, my ancestry at least on my maternal side, is 100% Italian. It is good to go, and cood to come home again. Welcome back!

Lo vero – Grazie per tutti signora Adrian!