With this month’s issue of PaperTigers being all about play, I picked up a Canadian poetry book chock full of rhymes one can skip, clap, bounce a ball or do actions to. The book is called Eenie Meenie Manitoba by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Scot Ritchie (Kids Can Press, 1996.) I’ve featured one of Heidbreder’s other poetry books in a previous post, and was also at the same time, quite happy to discover this book!
Eenie Meenie Manitoba explores Canadian geography in such delightful rhyming poems as “Toronto-to-to,” “Horsing Around BC,” “On the Rideau,” and “Charlottetown Fishmongers.” In this huge country with such wildly diverse landscapes, climates and cultures, it’s great to find a book that attempts to cover all the ‘bases’ so to speak! Alongside some poems are directions on how to use the rhymes in play. For example, to the poem “To Be, or Not To Be,” one can pull petals off of a daisy in the way people used to with the old ’she loves me, she loves me not’ rhyme. “Apple Me Dapple Me” is a good poem to bounce a ball to. And for skipping, there’s “Nova Scotia Lobsters.” The trick is to memorize the poem so one can use it in play. Summer is a good time to try out these rhymes and get your kids and yourselves outside with a bit of rope and a ball.
This week’s Poetry Friday host is Carol at Carol’s Corner.