Fifth Grade Book Talks for 2/29/08

Tour America: A Journey through Poems and Art
by Diane Siebert
Poems about 20 cool landmarks in the U.S. Some of them I knew about, but some were new to me. My favorites: Lucy the Elephant in New Jersey and the Vortex in Oregon. I kind of want to go to these places now. Especially the Vortex.

Love to Langston
by Tony Medina
Langston Hughes grew up in Harlem and became a famous poet. This book is by Tony Medina, another poet from Harlem. It tells the story of Langston's life: his struggle with racism, his desire to be a poet, his relationship with his father. And there are prose explanations in the book, too.

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
by Paul Fleischman
If you like to perform poems and bugs and have a friend or a parent that likes that stuff too, this book is perfect for you. It won the Newbery Medal in 1989. It's full of poems about insects that are meant to be read by two aloud by two people. It actually sounds really cool when you do it.

Moving Day
by Ralph Fletcher
Remember Love That Dog by Sharon Creech? Remember Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse? In the library we call these books "narrative poetry." They're long poems that tell a story, like a chapter book, but in verse. If you're interested in that kind of thing, Moving Day is the story of a boy who has to leave his home and his friends to move far away. He has to go to a new school and start all over. Has anyone ever had to do that? If you have, you know that it's not easy and it makes for some moving poetry. This book is actually autobiographical, which means the poet really knows what he's talking about. To find more poetry books like this, you can search the catalog for "narrative poetry."

Science Verse
by Jon Scieszka
This book is hilarious. Has anyone read Math Curse? Or The Stinky Cheese Man? Or The Time Warp Trio? This is by the same guy: Jon Scieszka. The premise of the book is a kid who starts to hear science as poetry. If you know your poetry, you'll recognize that these poems are parodies of really famous poems, too, which makes them all the funnier. It might be cool to try to identify the original poems, too.

Speaking of famous poems...

Whisper and Shout
edited by Patrice Vecchione
This is a collection of amazing poems. It's organized by subject: poems about life, family, friends, sports, wordplay poems, funny poems--by some of the greatest poets of all time: Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, etc. It's got biographical notes for all the poets, too, which I think is cool. If you want to get to know some classics, this is for you.

If you want to focus on just one famous poet...

Walt Whitman: Poetry for Young People
edited by Jonathan Levin
This is more difficult stuff, but definitely rewarding. I took a whole class on Whitman in college. He's considered one of the greatest American poets. O Captain My Captain is one of my favorites. He wrote it for President Lincoln after he was assassinated.

I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine
edited by Carol Ann Duffy
This is one for the girls, or boy who are interested in what it's like to be a girl. We've got a lot of amazing women poets contributing to this book about all kinds of issues. It's written for "young feminists" but it's pretty mature. You're probably just old enough to get it. Some of the poets are Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Mary Oliver, and Sharon Olds.

Carnival of the Animals: Poems Inspired by Saint-Saen's Music
So, this is cool because it comes with a CD that has the music, so you could listen to it while you read the poetry and really experience the book in tow different ways at once. It's classical music, some of the pieces you might recognize from Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia.