RED SINGS FROM TREETOPS: A YEAR IN COLORS by Joyce Sidman

Sidman, Joyce. 2009. Red Sings from Tree Tops: A Year in Colors. Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780545289788 

This volume has been sitting pristinely on my school shelf for five years.  I confess I have not appreciated it previously as I do now.  This volume needs to be savored like a smooth and rich crème brulee.  Being a kindergarten teacher, time to savor anything is usually impossible.  But I am going to give this lovely book another try. 

Joyce Sidman, our current NCTE Poetry Award winner, published this volume in 2009.  The illustrator, Pamela Zagarenski won a Caldecott Honor Award for her inspired art work.  Every word and every picture is a sensory extravagance. 

About this time in the school year, I do a unit on seasons.  This book is my new favorite to introduce each.  Sidman cleverly personifies the colors, giving them personalities and different characteristics for each season.  For example, in spring green is “shy,” in summer it’s “queen,” in fall it’s “tired,” and in winter it “shrinks.” 

You would not want to share this book without the pictures, but it would be fun to have the kids close their eyes and tell what red object comes to mind when you read this poem:

Red splashes fall trees, 

seeps into

every vein

of every five-fingered leaf.

Red swells

on branches bent low.

Red: crisp, juicy crunch!

How many students think of red maple leaves in the first half of the poem and how many think of apples when they hear “Red swells/on branches bent low?”

Again, ask your students what they see in their minds when they hear this:

In fall,

Yellow grows wheels

and lumbers

down the block,

blinking:

Warning—classrooms ahead.

The illustration of a school bus will solve the riddle if needed.

All of these unrhymed verses are meticulously crafted by Sidman’s characteristic talent for creative word imagery.  Don’t miss it!

 

WATER SINGS BLUE: OCEAN POEMS by Kate Coombs

Coombs, Kate. 2012. Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems. Illustrated by Meilo So. San Francisco: Chronicle. ISBN9780811872843

Kate Coombs makes a splash in her début poetry collection Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems.  Growing up near the Pacific Ocean, she clearly finds her inspiration in what she knows.  Her poems are the most concise condensation of ocean loveliness that I have read in a long time.  A most deserved winner of the 2013 Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for Children’s Poetry, Coombs' poetry is imaginative and full of the emotion, imagery, and beauty that the award stands for.  I felt like I had experienced the sea in twenty-three short and lovely poems. 

This would be a wonderful addition to any classroom library.  The poems range from three to twenty lines with the average poem being about eight lines.  In each titled poem she captures sights and sounds from sand to sky, and includes all the favorite living things like the whale, shark and octopus.  Most of her poems are rhymed verses with rhythms that echo the sea.  For example, “What the Waves Say” is written in rhyming paired lines that have a beat that mimics the rise and fall of the waves.

Her figurative language is so creative and delightful.  One of my favorites is called “Jellyfish Kitchen” when she likens a jellyfish to a cake cover.

Jellyfish Kitchen

           by Kate Coombs

The prim bell jar

with ruffled rim

my grandma used

to cover cake

has learned to swim.

Where bundts once lay

in sturdy rings,

this dome conceals

a frosted sting.

Her word play in “Not Really Jelly” captures the look and feel of a real jellyfish.

Not Really Jelly

     by Kate Coombs

You’re not really jelly,

you’re not really fish—

you’re free-floating noodles

escaped from a dish,

all slither and jiggle

and tremble and squish.

As if the poems are not beautiful enough, the watercolor illustrations by Meilo So couldn’t be more perfect. The blues of the ocean and sky, the neutrals of the sand, and the varied palette of the choral provide the crowning touch.

I can hardly wait for my next ocean unit to share this with my students.  I can see it inspiring ocean view art work and imaginative comparisons in spite of our land locked landscape. 

 

POEMS TO LEARN BY HEART compiled by Caroline Kennedy

Kennedy, Caroline, ed. 2013. Poems to Learn by Heart. Illustrated by Jon Muth. New York: Disney                 Hyperion Books.  ISBN 9781423108054

Poetry enthusiast Caroline Kennedy and painter Jon Muth, pair up again for a companion volume to their 2005 project, A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children.  Their 2013 offering is a denser collection called Poems to Learn by Heart.  Following their previous format, the poems are divided into chapters with each section introduced with a personal note by Ms. Kennedy.  A table of contents, index of first lines, index by author last name, and lengthy acknowledgments of source material accompany the volume.  The poets represented range from Saint Paul to current students in New York.  The majority of Kennedy’s selections are from classic poets.  Only five of the most notable award winning poets of the last thirty-four years are represented.

 Many of the poems selected for this volume are very long and of more interest to older students who are more serious about poetry.  I don’t know too many young students who would have the patience or desire to read, much less memorize some of the long verses.  Forcing memorization of some of these classics is probably one reason poetry has suffered in popularity.  However, there are still very entertaining and beloved poems complied here;  “My Shadow” by Robert Louis Stevenson, “If--“ by Rudyard Kipling, and I Corinthians 13:1-8 by Saint Paul to name a few.   As you can imagine from a collection of over 100 poems and 90 poets, many poetic forms are present; from a simple couplet to Holy Scripture, or a Shakespearean sonnet to the inspired prose of the Gettysburg Address.  

I was glad to discover a poem by Janet S. Wong called “Liberty.”

I pledge acceptance

of the views,

so different,

that make us America

To listen, to look,

to think, and to learn

One people

sharing the earth

responsible

for liberty

and justice

for all.

This poem naturally encourages a comparison and discussion of our own Pledge of Allegiance.  When reading this poem aloud, I think it is important to pause significantly at the line breaks the poet has determined.  This enhances the potency of each word or phrase.  The line breaks also mimic the line breaks of an oral recitation of our Pledge of Allegiance.  Try using this poem to launch a class project of designing a flag unique to the classroom and composing a pledge similar to a mission statement for the class.

This book would be a good one to add to a home library as well as school.  As time goes by, many of the classic poems are falling out of use.  Gone are the days when “Paul Revere’s Ride” or “Casey at the Bat” was known by every student.  I would not be surprised if many students graduate without hearing these poems even once.  I appreciate Ms. Kennedy’s efforts to use her name and influence to champion a revival of the love of poetry.