Small Reads for Brighters Days
Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m trying to deepen my poetry practice in 2021, and one thing I’m doing is a book study of Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook. In last week’s practice, I chose a poem to imitate. One way I want to stretch myself poetically is to imbue […]
Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) Today is the National Day on Writing, and what better day to share Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s new book for teachers, Poems Are Teachers? This amazing book features 50+ poems by different poets (some of whom are part of the Poetry Friday community) and more than […]
Welcome, everybody! I’m excited you’re here for the Poetry Friday Roundup! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) A couple of weeks ago, I made a Facebook faux pas in replying to a comment on my phone that I thought was to me, but wasn’t. The happy upshot of a long, boring story is that […]
I’ve never participated in this before, so I have no idea if I’m doing it right! And I’m a day early, because Thursday is 15 Words or Less Day here at my blog. But here are 10 rhyming nonfiction picture books I have loved. Some I wish I had written. Others, I’m just glad the […]
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week! I’ll be sharing more about NCTE over the next couple of weeks here, but I finished up the conference with a session where the Poetry Committee shares its picks for best books of the year. You can find the entire list, which was announced earlier this […]
Happy spring! Yesterday was the first day of spring, and birds were cheeping outside my window in the early morning, despite the frost on the ground. I celebrated by reading Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s new rhyming picture book, Every Day Birds (Orchard, 2016). Have you seen it? A single fact, poetically shared, and lovely cut paper […]
Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) Life (both personal and professional) has been super busy lately, and I confess I wasn’t planning to post for Poetry Friday this week. But then… I saw that Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s Forest Has a Song, one of my very favorite poetry collections of recent years, […]
Forest Has a Song by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, illus by Robbin Gourley Clarion, 2013 I shared a poem from this book for Poetry Friday?in celebration of its Cybils win in Poetry. (YAY!)?The words themselves are so simple, but there’s a lot going on. Here are a few things I notice about this poem, “Dusk.” First, […]
view cop(R(.Last year, I’shared a poem from Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s stunning Forest Has a Song (Clarion, 2013)?here before, and today, I’m sharing another in celebration of its Cybils win! Yay! Um, and not bragging or anything, but guess who nominated Forest for the Cybils? Yup, me:>) It’s hard for me to choose which to share, […]
Happy National Poetry Month! And welcome to my monthlong extravaganza of posting a Poem Starter Video every day! Here’s the scoop. I decided to start sharing Poem Starter Videos to give teachers a quick and simple poetry activity for the classroom. These are quick and casual and done for fun. I’ll also be posting the […]
