A Meal of the Stars, by Dana Jensen, pt. 2

A Meal of the Stars: poems up and down
by Dana Jensen, ill by Tricia Tusa
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

Thinking About a Poem

On Friday, I shared a poem from this book for Poetry Friday. That kite poem is one of my favorites from?A Meal of the Stars. It’s not a rhyming poem, but the poet, Dana Jensen, has some rhyming words in it, like right and tight and kite. I like the tall skinny form of the poem because it stretches up like a kite string. And I think it’s cool that the poem starts at the bottom of the page! When you hold a kite, the string starts in your hand, down low, and then reaches upward. That’s what this poem seems to do, too. The action words–soar, loop, and dance–make me feel happy and floaty. And I think it’s cool that the kite string starts out in the bottom left corner of the spread, but then the kite comes into the picture from the upper right corner. So the kite string is NOT one long straight line like the poem is. I like that, though. It feels more dancey, which is how Jensen describes the kite moving. I also love the bird flying by the kite in the illustration–it has a little neckerchief on! It looks almost like he’s saying, “C’mon, let’s play” to the kite.

CCRA.R.4, CCRA.R.7

In this blog feature, I share a picture book I really enjoy and externalize my process of reading it. I’m hoping this will be useful for those of you who are?educators sharing books with kids and perhaps give you ideas of some?elements you could include?in your book discussions.