How to use this Page

Summer Reading
by
Greg Pincus

I read two dozen comic books. Three graphic novels, too.
I understood the signs so wasn't eaten at the zoo!
I read aloud each billboard as we drove on our vacation.
The packages our food comes in? I read their information.
I figured out which films to watch by reading their descriptions.
I read a lot of magazines (and got a few subscriptions).
I learned the rules of four new games by reading the instructions.
I devoured five new joke books (though I skipped the introductions).
I read the list of all the things I can't do at the pool.
I even read the packet labeled "Welcome Back to School."
I think I am a reader, though in class I get "those" looks...
'Cuz I didn't crack a cover of my summer reading books!


Ah, yes... summer reading. You know... let's not talk about that - let's talk instead about the fact that the Poetry Friday roundup is up over at Author Amok today! The roundup is purely happy stuff (as is, I've always believed, the very name Author Amok), so head on over and get your fill o' poetry goodies.

And if you want to get all the poems hereabouts (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

A Book for Me
by
Greg Pincus

When what’s there on the page
Lets me feel someone’s rage,
Or the joy in the words
Makes me fly with the birds,
Or something I’ve read
Gets me out of my head,
Or the story on view
Helps me see something new,
Or the book sets me free...
It’s a book that’s for me.

The Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Karissa at the Iris Chronicles. Head on over and see the poetry joy.

If you want to get all my poems emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

Here's a great contest that gets kids to read and write while connecting them to their favorite authors:

"The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores and in cooperation with affiliate state centers for the book, invites readers in grades 4 through 12 to enter Letters About Literature, a national reading-writing contest. To enter, readers write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre-- fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic, explaining how that author's work changed the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves."

Info here: http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/letters.html

It made me think about the books I read as a child and wondered who I would have written. As an elementary student, I read Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and books of similar ilk. But then I also read every book on World War II and being  a Catholic school girl, I read a lot of books about the saints. Then in high school, I read a lot of political fiction (Allen Drury, Fletcher Knebel), and then Arthur Hailey books plus sci-fi writers like Isaac Asimov. I also read a lot of scripts from Broadway plays, checking out the Best of Broadway book from the library each year. 

But I'm pretty sure the person I would have written would have been Gwendolyn Brooks. Her poetry really resonated with me, and as a student in the 1950s and 1960s, she was one of the few African American female writers I knew. Literature today is so much more diverse and I hope students will take advantage of this opportunity to tell the writers who speak to them how much they matter.