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So, I like to craft. I especially like to needlefelt. I find it relaxing, and it is something I can do that is creative that for me does not involve a lot of thinking once I know what I am doing... And, I also love to create things to take with me to book readings. The idea is to get the children to interact with my books in a tactile and fun way. For the young children this really seems to work. So, I give you Mowat and his GINORMOUS snowman...

I’m quite fond of fall in New York, and as luck would have it, today is a lovely election day here in Manhattan. To be honest though, I’m finding it rather difficult to think about any map that isn’t a patchwork of red, blue, and maybe a splash of purple. So instead, I thought I’d write something about a visit I made to a sixth grade classroom last week.

At the end of the summer I was approached by a teacher in Brooklyn who was looking for someone to give a presentation about maps to her students. Curious to find out what these kids knew already and excited by the challenge of trying to teach them a little more about geography, I agreed to visit her school during my lunch hour. I discovered a few things while I was there: first (and I suppose this wasn’t really a surprise), our teachers have their work cut out for them. I did not have the full attention of her class much beyond the first 10-15 minutes, and the wide range of ability that I saw in just one period was daunting. I was both over-prepared (in terms of the amount of information I was ready to cover), and under-prepared (with respect to the difficulty some student had in grasping basic concepts). I talked about my job a bit, showed them six different types of maps, and encouraged them to ask lots of questions. Then, with about 30 minutes remaining, we attempted to walk them through the basic steps of creating a map of their own neighborhood.

I’m glad that I had an opportunity to visit New Horizons Middle School, and now that my feet are wet, I would actually like to talk to more kids about maps and geography. Because what I learned that afternoon is that our educational system has some room for improvement in this realm, and our children can’t afford to enter the adult world without some basic knowledge on the subject. As a colleague of mine likes to say: Without geography, you’re nowhere!

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Congratulations to Joyce Sidman who has won the Cybils award for poetry for young people, for This Is Just To Say; Poems Of Apology And Forgiveness (Hougton Mifflin). It is a collection of poems of apology and forgiveness in the voices of a classroom of children. (I wrote about it earlier since I chose it as one of the best of 2007: It’s funny, poignant, and true, with Sidman’s trademark gift for the craft of poetry in an amazing variety of poetic forms.) It is also an honor book for this year’s Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for Children’s Poetry. Sidman won the Hopkins award two years ago for Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems (Houghton Mifflin). Sidman also won last year’s first ever Cybils Bloggers’ prize for children’s poetry for Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow (Houghton Mifflin) which was also one of my picks for the best of 2006. She is piling up the prizes fast!

FYI: The Cybils, a loose acronym for Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards, began with nominations open to absolutely anyone. Then five nominating committee members (including yours truly) read the nominated books (with different committees in ten categories, from poetry to fiction to nonfiction to graphic novels). This is the second year of the administration of the award.

Sidman is one of my favorites, so I’ve posted about her work often—about her wonderful dog poetry [The World According to Dog: Poems and Teen Voices (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) and Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)], about her reading at the ALSC Poetry Jam in June (in DC) and the NCTE Poetry Blast in November (in New York), and about her downloadable bookmark book poem, “This Book," for National Children’s Book Week.

Here’s a brief excerpt about her from my own resource book on children’s poets, Poetry People:
“Joyce Sidman was born on born June 4, 1956, in Hartford, Connecticut. She is the middle sister of three, and spent summers at camp in Maine. From an early age, she felt motivated to write, and started writing as far back as elementary school. She discovered poetry in high school, encouraged by a sympathetic teacher. She earned her bachelor’s degree in German from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and a teaching certificate at Macalester College in Minnesota. Joyce lives in Wayzata, Minnesota, with her husband and two sons, near the edge of a large woodland. When she isn't writing, she enjoys teaching via week-long poetry-writing residences in the schools. Her hobbies include gardening, identifying birds, insects and frogs, and reading and baking cookies."

This year’s prize winner, This is to Say, is a gem for reading aloud with multiple voices, much like this year’s Newbery winner (Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!)-- only set in a modern classroom “village.” Here is just a taste:

to Anthony
Some Reasons Why

Why must we work so hard,
and always be the best?

Parents say:
hard work builds character.
I say:
too much hard work means no laughter.

Parents say:
only the best get ahead.
I say:
everyone’s good at something.

Parents say:
daydreaming is just an excuse for laziness.
I say:
they just never learned how to write a poem.

by Tenzin
(writing for Anthony’s mother, who said he was being ridiculous)

Follow up with more poem collections about kids in classrooms like:
Cheng, Andrea. 2008. Where the Steps Were. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Frost, Helen. 2004. Spinning Through the Universe. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Paraskevas, Betty. 1995. Gracie Graves and the Kids from Room 402. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.
Singer, Marilyn. 1996. All We Needed to Say: Poems about School from Tanya and Sophie. New York: Atheneum.

And for YA:
Alexander, Elizabeth and Nelson, Marilyn. 2007. Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color. Wordsong.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books.
___. 1997. The Taking of Room 114: A Hostage Drama in Poems. New York: Lodestar Books/Dutton.
___. 1996. Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? New York: Lodestar Books/Dutton.
Grimes, Nikki. 2002. Bronx Masquerade. New York: Dial Books.
Koertge, Ron. 2001. The Brimstone Journals. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.

Catch the rest of the Poetry Friday round up at Big A, little a.

Picture credit: barnesandnoble.com

I’m tickled pink to celebrate the one year anniversary of my blog! My first entry set my purpose: to “explore what's new in the field of poetry published for children and young adults.” And my first entry was also a shameless plug of a new book I wrote to promote poetry with young people entitled, Poetry Aloud Here, a practitioner's guide to sharing poetry with children (ages 5-12) in ways that are fun, meaningful and participatory. Well, brace yourself for more brazen self promotion. I’m pleased to announce I have published another resource to help with promoting poetry with kids entitled, Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets (available now from Libraries Unlimited).

This new book provides a comprehensive introduction to more than 60 contemporary poets writing for young people, from Arnold Adoff to Douglas Florian to J. Patrick Lewis to Naomi Shihab Nye to Gary Soto to Janet Wong, and many more. The entry for each poet includes brief biographical information, highlights selected poetry books authored, showcases awards won, notes related web sites, and provides suggestions for making connections (programming ideas, related books, and activities across genres).

Additional supplementary information is also provided, including further lists of poets to know, awards for children’s poetry, helpful poetry web sites, a list of poems about libraries and reading, recommendations of must-have poetry anthologies, a poetry practices checklist, tips for poet promotion activities, and a calendar of poet birthdays to celebrate month by month.

Poet and anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins calls it a “poetry treasury” and a “readable, useful, not-to-be-missed resource… a reference volume that will leap from the shelves.” Thank you, Lee!

If you’re looking for more help in promoting poets or simply want to familiarize yourself with many of the wonderful poets writing for children today, I hope you’ll check it out. And I welcome any input on the blog as a whole, especially any suggestions or questions for future content. Thanks for stopping by!

Picture credit: Libraries Unlimited

Today is poet, Joyce Carol Thomas’s birthday, so I offer this tribute to her from my upcoming book, Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets. This is an excerpt from the entry on her and her poetry.

Joyce Thomas was born on May 25, 1938, in Ponca City, Oklahoma. She attended San Francisco City College and the University of San Francisco, but received her bachelor’s degree from San Jose State College in California. She also earned a master’s degree from Stanford University. She has worked as a telephone operator, a teacher of French and Spanish, a reading program director, and as a professor of English. Thomas has won numerous awards including Best Book and Notable citations from the American Library Association, National Council of Teachers of English and the National Council for the Social Studies; as well as the National Book Award for Children’s Fiction, the Coretta Scott King Award, and the Oklahoma Sequoyan Young Adult Book Award.

Joyce Thomas’ free verse poems in Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea (HarperTrophy, 1996) and the companion volume Gingerbread Days (HarperTrophy, 1997) share glimpses of family love while celebrating the beauty and heritage of all African Americans. Share the thoughtful poem, “Becoming the Tea” (from Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea) and brew a cup of tea (preferably from tea leaves) to bring the poem to life. Bring gingerbread to accompany the January poem from Gingerbread Days, a collection of a dozen poems loosely linked to the months of the year. Pair this with Lilian Moore’s poetry collection based on the calendar year, Mural On Second Avenue and Other City Poems (Candlewick, 2004) or Eloise Greenfield’s Night on Neighborhood Street (Dial, 1991), a glimpse of life in an urban community, or Nikki Grimes’ Hopscotch Love: A Family Treasury of Love Poems (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1999), a heartwarming collage of family moments.

In the poems in Crowning Glory (HarperCollins, 2002), Thomas honors the African American traditions of braids, cornrows, dreadlocks, ribbons, and scarves in adorning the head and hair. She particularly pays tribute to women, much like Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Mattie Lou at Twelve” (Spin a Soft Black Song, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987) or Jacqueline Woodson’s picture book Show Way (Putnam, 2005). Follow up with Kathryn Lasky’s picture book biography, Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker illustrated by Nneka Bennett (Candlewick, 2003), the founder of the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company of hair care products for Black women and the richest African American woman of her times.

Thomas narrows her focus to mothers and daughters, with her poetry book, A Mother's Heart, A Daughter's Love: Poems for Us to Share (HarperCollins, 2001), full of poems designed to be read alone, together in a duet, or as a call and response. Connect these poems with Janet Wong’s collection, The Rainbow Hand: Poems About Mothers and Children (Simon & Schuster, 2000) or Pat Mora’s anthology, Love to Mama: A Celebration of Mothers (Lee and Low, 2001). Children can choose their favorite poems and tape themselves reading them to share as a special “Mother’s Day” or birthday poem tribute.

Picture credit: http://www.joycecarolthomas.com