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Sometimes poetry can feel like such a grown-up subject — too hard for children to understand and enjoy.  My efforts in getting my children to like poetry have had mixed results.  However, a children’s poetry book by the recently deceased Florence Parry Heide and daughter Roxanne Heide Pierce entitled Oh, Grow Up: Poems to Help You Survive Parents, Chores, School and Other Afflictions (Orchard Books, 1996) was a real hit with my daughter.  Illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, this funny book explores what it’s like to be a child and have to ‘grow up.’    There’s poems about having to share with or being outnumbered by siblings; there are poems about braces and hand-me-downs.   My daughter was particularly fixated with the ‘braces’ poem:

My braces have been on for years.
They’re coming off next week
I can hardly wait to see
if there are teeth beneath.

I wonder if her fascination has to do with her brother’s braces which, rather coincidentally, are coming off this week!  As is our usual custom, we read the poems alternately — she reading one poem and I reading the other — and it was an enjoyable poetry reading experience for both of us.   The illustrations by Westcott were as down-to-earth as the poems and my daughter quite liked the pictures.

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Robyn at Read Write Howl.

Do Pirates Take Baths?

Author: Kathy Tucker
Illustrator: Nadine Bernard Westcott
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company; Sept., 1997
Age Level: 4-8

So you want to be a pirate? In "Do Pirates Take Baths?", you can find out if this is the profession for you. Short questions such as "Do Pirates Take Baths?" top each page and are followed by brief explanations in rhyme.
"Just once in a while, when they smell very bad, they jump into the seas. They use sea foam to wash their hair, and shells to scrub their knees."
Find out how pirates work, if they have pets, and even what they dream about. A great addition to a child's pirate collection, Matey!