This month I'll be highlighting some of the top-notch poetry published in the last year--so top-notch that it was deemed by the
Cybils Award Round 1 panel to be a finalist for the award. As a Round 2 judge, I'm going to share some excerpts from each book this month. Since it finally got cold here in Maryland this week, I'll begin with...
Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Coldby Joyce Sidman
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| Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014 |
This book, illustrated by Rick Allen using a complicated combination of linoleum block prints hand-colored, "digitally scanned, composed, and layered," contains just 12 poems. Some are free verse and some are rhymed and metered. This collection has received 5 starred reviews and almost a dozen awards, including in 2014, since it was published in November of 2014.
excerpt from "Winter Bees"
We scaled a million blooms
to reap the summer's glow.
Now, in the merciless cold,
we share each morsel of heat,
each honeyed crumb.
We cram to a sizzling ball
to warm our queen, our heart, our home.
excerpt from "Chickadee's Song"
The sun wheels high, the cardinal trills.
We sip the drips of icicles.
The buds are thick, the snow is slack.
Spring has broken winter's back.
How's that for a little taste of the cold?
Please join Tabatha for some more of the muscle and grace of great poetry--she's got the Roundup at
The Opposite of Indifference today.
It's true--I'm a judgy person. It can hardly be helped when it's a strong quarter of your
personality. This trait can be problematic in everyday life, but I'm diving into 2016 with a new project that positively requires me to be judgy! This year I am serving as a Round 2 Judge for the Cybils Poetry Awards--if you're not familiar with the Cybils, read all about them
here. The process is quite formal, and after a longer period of Round 1 review performed by panelists, I and my fellow Round 2 judges (Linda Baie, Rosemary Marotta, Diane Mayr and Laura Shovan with leadership from Jone MacCulloch) have about 6 weeks to choose a winner from the seven finalists....and here they are!
HOUSE ARREST
by K. A. Holt (Chronicle)
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOK OF NATURE POETRY
edited by J. Patrick Lewis (National Geographic Children’s Books)
FLUTTER AND HUM/ALETEO Y ZUMBIDO
by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt)
PAPER HEARTS
by Meg Wiviott (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
THE POPCORN ASTRONAUTS AND OTHER BITEABLE RHYMES
by Barbara Ruddel, illustrated by Joan Rankin ((Margaret K. McElderry Books)
FULL CICADA MOON
by Marilyn Hilton (Dial Books)
WINTER BEES AND OTHER POEMS OF THE COLD
by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (HMH Books for Young Readers)
Congratulations to all the authors and their publishers! Here is my starting point: I own one of these books already; I know quite a bit about two more, and nothing at all about the other four. Oh what fun it is to look forward to deep reading (for which I have less time than I ought to these days. How is it that parenting teens is so much more time-consuming than parenting toddlers?)
The Poetry Roundup for the first day of the new year is with Mary Lee (and Franki, celebrating TEN years of blogging) at A Year of Reading. All the best to everyone is what we all--I hope we ALL--fervently wish for the world...simple kindness and deep respect. Poetry is always a part of that.
Bonus video: President Obama tells Kid President how kids and adults can work together to change the world. It's a couple of years old now, but it applies just as well today.
