Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
Today, I’m just sharing the five poetry picture books I’ve read and loved so far this year. If you’ve missed any of these, it’s time to order them or put them on reserve at your library! (Anything in quotation marks is something I shared before about the book, either here on my blog, on Goodreads, on Amazon, etc.)
Things to Do: “The art is dreamy and exuberant at the same time, and Elaine’s gorgeous Things to Do poems bring whimsy and life to an entire day, dawn to night.”
The Best of Today’s Little Ditty: “This would be wonderful to use in the classroom, since it’s divided into the challenges (water cinquains, monster haiku, clerihews, kindness poems, etc.) and features a nicely varied selection of poems written to each challenge. It would also be fun for a poet to work his or her way through the book, analyzing what you like or don’t like about each poem and then writing your own poem for the challenge. But most of all, and most surprising of all to me, it’s just good reading.“
Fresh-Picked Poetry: “These fun verses capture fun and lovely moments from a farmers’ market–the customer who always picks her produce from the bottom of the pile, tasting samples, eating sweet corn, getting caught blue-handed… I felt like the poems got even stronger and more inventive as the book went on, and the light-hearted art complements the poems well.” Now that’s it’s spring, it’s the perfect time to pick this up!
Our Food: “[Some of the haiku] are truly lovely.
On the Grains spread:
How tall the corn grows!
Reaching up toward the sun,
Talking to scarecrows.
…a great introduction to the idea of nutrition for young readers.“
Freedom Over Me: Hearbreaking and beautiful and inspiring, all at the same time.
The also always inspiring Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at The Poem Farm.
ohhhhhhhhhhhh, this is a super post. I have The Best of TLD … and I’m awful for not having used that as a mentor text yet. I need to do that. Maybe I can for #wonderbreak. I’m joining you with a poem a day and hoping I can balance poetry month and school library month 😉
Appreciations for this Poetry Friday fanfare for fresh poetry goodness. I have some on my list but will scribble down the titles of the others, Laura. Happy Poetry Month, too.
My kids were really taken with the facts in Our Food….you know, because they’re sooo concerned about nutrition! Go figure! 😉
Thank you, Laura, for this Poetry Friday book celebration. I do not have all of these…but it’s time to find them now. I’ll share your post too…these books should be in many many hands! I look forward to reading your poems this month….such a beautiful project. xx
What wonderful books. This is a post that makes me smile because the world is a beautiful place. Full of light and all the best words. So unlike the newspapers these days.
Things to Do is a new favorite for me! And there are a couple of titles I’ve missed, so off I go to request them. Thanks for sharing. Nothing beats a beautiful picture book of poetry!
What a great stack of poetry books to kick off the poetry celebration month! I can’t wait to share this list with teachers!
These are all so lovely, we have a big poetry month display up in the library, and I was thrilled to see a few of these showcased proudly!
Fun choices, Laura! I need to get my hands on “Our Food” soon! =)
Lots of love should go to these books, Laura. I just got Michelle’s Fresh-Picked Poetry from the library, but have read all the others. Glad to see them again.
These books seem like great picks, Laura. May I tell you again how much I adore your new book, If You Were The Moon! I can’t wait to present my daughter with this book from you at her baby shower. Thank you for the galley that I can have for my own reading pleasure. This book is a must for a child’s home library.
Most of these I know, and although I’ve heard so many good things about Fresh-Picked Poetry, I haven’t seen it yet. Our Food is new to me and seems like a perfect companion to Fresh-Picked Poetry. Thank you for sharing, Laura! Happy Poetry Month!
Thank you for sharing these books. They look luscious! I will be looking for them.
Freedom Over Me was a POWERFUL read aloud in my 5th grade classroom.