Where Is Miss Rumphius?

You've probably noticed the lack of posts in the last 8 weeks. Summer school and life have been kicking my butt. However, with a little bit of R&R scheduled, a TBR pile that's huge, and big plans for some new lists and features, I hope to be back in fighting form in no time.

I'm not lying when I say I've missed you. I'm not just talking about posting here, I'm talking about reading you. I haven't visited my favorite blogs in ages. I missed all the reports about ALA (Yes, I was there!), Brush Up Your Shakespeare month, a slew of Poetry Fridays and Nonfiction Mondays, and so much more.

I leave today for a much needed vacation and will be back on August 2nd. I hope you'll join me here when I return.

Tuesday Poetry Stretch - A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Yup, I'm late. Chalk it up to the last week of 8 weeks of madness and a heavy teaching schedule. I'm going home to visit my mom soon and started thinking about all the sayings she tosses around, hence the title of this post. I thought it might be fun to write around a saying or two. Some of my mom's gems include:

• "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. If horse turds were biscuits you'd eat til you died."
• "Why don't you freeze your teeth and give your tongue a sleigh ride?"

I'm thinking about raining cats and dogs at the moment. They might make a great poem. How about you? What will you write about? Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - The Sky's the Limit

While waiting for the fireworks to begin last night I was doing a bit of stargazing, or not, given how cloudy it was. Even on clear nights in the summer I find myself missing Orion. His reappearance is just another of the many things I love about fall. Yes, I know it's summer, but it's hot and my least favorite time of year, so I'm trying to think cool thoughts.

Are you a stargazer or skywatcher? What is your favorite thing in the sky? I'll have to admit I'm most fond of birds in flight, the harvest moon, and winter stars. Let's write about the sky this week and the things you find most appealing in it. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Abecedarian

It's time this week to revisit and old (i.e. - one we've already played with) form. An abecedarian poem is one in which the verses or words begin with successive letters of the alphabet. I was inspired to think about this form again because I've been reading When You Are Alone / It Keeps You Capone: An Approach to Creative Writing With Children by Myra Cohn Livingston. In it you'll find a poem written by a ninth grade boy that begins this way.

Oration

A            Mexican hat is not to
Be           undermined, especially when one can
Cee          its innate qualities which
Dee          golden color rev-
Eals.        However
F            one doesn't see the beauty:
G-           wiz- let them go to
H            or heaven but
I            do not think they should be on this earth, or
Jail.

It's really a silly little thing, but it reminded my of how many clever and interesting ways there are to write a poem.

So, your challenge for the week is to write an abecedarian poem. Leave me a note about your work and I'll post the results here later this week.

Check Me Out In the June Issue of Book Links!

This month you'll find me sharing a thematic book list somewhere besides this blog. Check out the June issue of Book Links for my article entitled Titles That Sing and Shine: Books about Sound and Light. You'll find poetry, fiction, informational titles and activity books for grades K-6. You'll also find a sidebar on scientists of light and sound with suggested titles for learning more about Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.

If you can't get to the article right away, check out some of these web sites about light and sound.

Light

• LASERS: From Science Fiction to Everyday Life
• Make a Splash With Color
• Optics for Kids

Sound

• Instruments of the Orchestra
• New York Philharmonic – Instrument Storage Room

Finally, check out this Poetry in the Classroom post entitled Lighting It Up for even more ideas on teaching about light.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Cento

Today's poetry stretch takes the form of thievery. Actually, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so let's think about this as an exercise in honoring our favorite lines of poetry. Today's exercise in mental gymnastics takes the form of the cento.

The cento is a poem made entirely of pieces from poems by other authors. Centos can be rhymed or unrhymed, short or long.
(From The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms.)

You can read more about the cento at Poets.org. I also like this article about found poetry.

Not one to stick with the rules, I wrote using adult titles on my bookshelf.

Nobody's Fool

He waits in the secret garden while his
love is lost to the housekeeping.
He knows the name of the rose,
and all creatures great and small.
He meditates on beauty,
and walks where angels fear to tread.
He is the constant gardener,
tending the family orchard while
the sun also rises.
He lives in a brave new world,
without pride and prejudice,
by a thread of grace.
He dreams of Gilead,
the wide Sargasso Sea and
going to the lighthouse,
but dreams blow away
on the shadow of the wind.
He views the world through
an imperfect lens, and knows it's all
one big damn puzzler, but
he believes that life is a miracle and
that the Lord God made them all.

Here are the books that make up this cento.

1. Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
2. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
4. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
5. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
6. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
7. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
8. The Constant Gardener by John le Carre
9. The Family Orchard by Nomi Eve
10. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
12. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
13. A Thread of Grace by Maria Doria Russell
14. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
15. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
16. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
17. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
18. An Imperfect Lens by Anne Roiphe
19. One Damn Big Puzzler by John Harding
20. Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry
21. The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot

So, do you want to play? What kind of poem will you assemble? Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Poetry Stretch Results - Macaronic Verse

Well, it appears that last week's challenge put me in a bit of hot water. Sheesh! I didn't think it was THAT hard. Here are the results for macaronic verse, or poems that include bits and pieces of another language.

Subject is Matter
by Jane Yolen

Subject is matter,
And matter is verse.
The one can be versatile,
Or something worse.
Verser and verser,
Berserker we go
Into the mental
And magical flow.

Floe is the answer,
A berg of real choice,
When verse is much better
Than verbiage or noise.
And so burgermeister
Come sell me some rhymes
That I can take with me
In virtual times.

©2010 by Jane Yolen, all rights reserved


GRATIAS
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

Mother of merci
beaucoup
and grazie mille
and muchas gracias.

Estranged relation
of vielen dank
and mange takk,
among many others.

You grace—you gratify
my philologist’s heart
with your Latinate
morphology.

Gratias,
Gratias,
Gratias tibi ago,
Thank you so.


No
by Kate Coombs of Book Aunt

I cannot make a telephone calle
or cut the abundant grasa.
I will not shoot the revolver
or lift the heavy masa.
I won't congratulate the champú
or buy a movie pasa.
Nor will I pet the cat's furia
or polish up the brasa.
Don't ask me to drink a cola
or shelve books in a casa.
And no matter how fast I can run,
I'm not going to win the raza.

—Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved

NOTES:
calle = street
grasa = grease
revolver = to turn
masa = dough
champú = shampoo
pasa = he/she passes
furia = fury
brasa = live coal
cola = tail (of an animal)
casa = house
raza = race, lineage
("No" is the same in Spanish and English.)


Econd-say Anguage-lay
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm

Igs-pay are riendly-fay.
Igs-pay are mart-say.
If you ike-lay igs-pay
Ou'll-yay do our-yay art-pay
to isten-lay ell-way
to peak-say in wine-say.
Irst-fay etter-lay ast-lay
Add ay
You'll e-bay ine-fay.

(If is-thay is oo-tay
ard-hay or-fay ou-yay,
emember-ray...
igs-pay peak-say
Glish-enay oo-tay.)

© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater


Song in Macaroni
by Barbara Turner

Just south of Rigatoni
is the city of Bologna
and for a pocket full of pennes
you can get into the fair.

Where Ms. Elizabeth Rotini
Signs her book on Ditalini
Who painted Acini de Pepe
with the long spaghetti hair.

--Barbara J. Turner


Not Lost In Translation
By Liz Korba of Correspondence.org

English can bee sew confusing.
(How can “says” be said that way?!)
I am walking. I am running. I am sading… (No? Can’t say?!)
I walk slowly. I run quickly. I work hardly… (Not that way?!)
Every rule we know gets broken. My pants ARE?! Shirt IS! (Ok…)
You my teacher good and friendly. Gracias for help and tries.
Here’s a card – “In Sympathy” – What?! It’s for when someone dies?!
Read my note, then you will see…
“Thanks for all you did to me.”

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Macaronic Verse

The Handbook of Poetic Forms defines macaronic verse in this fashion.

Macaronic verse is a peculiar, rare and often comic form of poetry that sometimes borders on nonsense. It is a mixture of two (or more) languages in a poem, in which the poet usually subjects one language to the grammatical laws of another to make people laugh.

You can read more at Wikipedia and learn a bit about the history of this form. I was interested to note that the Carmina Burana (which I sang eons ago in high school) is a fine example of this.

So, your challenge for this week is to write a poem that uses more than one language. If you don't know another language, make one up. Pig Latin, anyone? Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Poetry Stretch Results - Some Like It Hot

The challenge this week was to write about something hot. Here are the results.

Kate Coombs of Book Aunt shared this untitled poem.

Today has a fever,
but the ocean puts cool fingers
across its hot forehead
and says, "Shhhh.
Soon it will be night."

--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved

VANISHING ACT
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

Nine years old, bored with summer,
sick of sunburn, watermelon,
almost wishing for September,
I follow my patient father
through hanging vines,
chain-linked swings
of our equatorial jungle gym,
where earth turns daily
and vegetables grow.
I plunk myself down
between red radish rows,
leaves like ping-pong paddles,
while Father thrusts
a spade into soft soil.

At garden’s margin
a fat, black rabbit
tips slack ears
like a conjurer’s top hat
at miracle finale
of a mirror-shadow show.
(Father doesn’t look up;
this trick’s for me.)
Long-eared illusionist,
with rabbit sleight-of-foot,
nabs one red radish,
into tall grass disappears,
without presto, bravo,
or wherever-did-he-go.

Pepper
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm

It was such a cute pepper
the size of my thumb.
I bit off the tip
and I felt pretty dumb
for though it was little
that pepper was strong.
I thought it was sweet.
It was hot.
I was wrong.

© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Diane Mayr of Random Noodling shared this untitled poem.

afternoon heat...
gray cat flops on her side
to stretch long
against the cool wood floor
still and silent as a shadow

Air-Condition
by Liz Korba of Correspondence.org

It's hot.
I'm not.

Jone of Deo Writer shares a poem about the heat.

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.

Better Than Wizard's Chess

While I continue to dig out from under a pile of work, please enjoy this brief interlude. And yes, it IS better than Wizard's chess!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Some Like It Hot

I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth where blogging is concerned. I'm swamped with work right now, but wouldn't dream of letting down all you folks who take up challenges with me. I don't know what it's like where you are, but it's darn hot here. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. I have lived here nearly 16 years and I still don't like the summers. I don't miss the Buffalo snow, but I do miss the summers and the fall.

Okay, enough of my stream of consciousness on the weather. Let's write about something HOT. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Nonfiction Monday - Arctic Reading

It's been quite hot out, so the reading I'm doing with my son has taken a chilly turn. Here is a trio of books that examines life in the harsh Arctic wilderness.

Arctic Lights, Arctic Nights, written by Debbie S. Miller and illustrated by Jon Van Zyle - The city of Fairbanks, Alaska lies one hundred and fifteen miles south of the Arctic Circle. This book provides seasonal descriptions of the changing hours of light and temperatures in Fairbanks from one summer solstice to the next. Across the top of each page readers will find the date, total number of hours and minutes of daylight, times for sunrise and sunset, and average high and low temperatures. The text examines everything from the migration of birds and caribou to the hibernation of bears, all placed within the context of the lengthening and shortening of days. Animals referenced in the text include the moose, snowshoe hare, grizzly bear, ground squirrel, sandhill crane, caribou, wolf, raven, and trumpeter swan. The text ends with a glossary that explains phenomena like "blinks," "diamond dust," and "sun dogs."

Ice Bears, written by Brenda Guiberson and illustrated by Ilya Spirin - Beautifully written and illustrated, this story begins in December with the birth of two polar bear cubs and follows them through the year. Readers learn how they grow, develop, and learn to survive in a complex ecosystem. The ice is a central focus here, and readers will come to see the threat to the bears as the climate warms and the ice melts. The back matter explains a bit more about threats to the Arctic and includes a list of websites for environmental organizations. (You can learn more about this book by reading my review.)

Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with a Caribou Herd, written by Karsten Heuer - Read that title again and let two words sink in--ON FOOT. This is an adaptation of Heuer’s adult title that describes the five months he and his wife spent following the migration of more than 100,000 Grant’s caribou to their breeding ground in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In describing the difficulties they (humans) faced, Heuer also provides readers with an intimate view of this seasonal trek from the perspective of the caribou. While journeying thousands of kilometers, the caribou must cross mountain slopes and thawing rivers while surviving blizzards and the constant threat of predators. Accompanied by photographs of the migration, this is an amazing story that helps readers to understand the delicate Arctic ecosystem.

If you are interested in learning more about the Arctic and Arctic wildlife, check out these resources.

• Defenders of Wildlife has a series of wildlife and habitat fact sheets.
• Polar Bears International has an extensive page of polar bear facts.
• The National Geographic Society has information on polar bears at creature feature.
• Canadian Geographic has some information on caribou.
• The Arctic Studies Center answers some frequently asked questions about the arctic.
• The Arctic Wildlife Portfolio at the Arctic Studies Center has a wealth of information on birds, as well as land and sea mammals.
• Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online magazine for K-5 teachers integrating science, literacy and the polar regions.
• NOAA has an Arctic theme page with a gallery of Arctic images.

This post was written for Nonfiction Monday. Hosting this week is Lori at Lori Calabrese Writes. Do take some time to check out all the great posts highlighting nonfiction this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Ottava Rima

I keep going back to form when I need some structure for my writing. It actually helps me when I have constraints to work within. Ottava rima is an Italian form that consists of a stanza of eight lines with the rhyme scheme abababcc. In English, the lines are usually written in iambic pentameter. Ottava rima is generally associated with epic poems (like Don Juan), but can be used for shorter poems.

An example of ottava rima can be found in the poem Sailing to Byzantium. Here are the first two stanzas of the poem.

Sailing to Byzantium
by William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

So, your challenge for the week is to write a poem in the form of ottava rima. Leave me a note about your work and I'll post the results here later this week.

Poetry Stretch Results - By the Numbers

The challenge this week was to write some mathematically inclined poetry. Here are the results.

CAT'S TWELVE TAILS
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

One she wore on Sunday mornings
strolling with a friend.
Two she took on pleasant outings
by the river bend.
Three she kept for secret errands
prowling in the dark.
Four she hid beneath a bush
beside the city park.
Five she dressed in scarlet ribbons
meant to catch the eye
Of chickadee or meadow mouse
or bashful butterfly.
Six she bought on market day
and paid a level price.
Seven tagged along behind
against her own advice.
Eight she gambled and she lost
in midnight games of chance.
Nine she broke while practicing
a whirling-dervish dance.
Ten she groomed to gleaming black
until her tongue turned red.
Eleven she abandoned
for a buttered crust of bread.
Twelve she had inherited
at birth with regal pride.
She curled it close upon her breast
and wore it when she died.

© 2010 Steven Withrow. All rights reserved


Four Leaf Clover
by Amy LV of The Poem Farm

We hunted on our knees in clover
running our fingers through grass
trying to find four leaves
in a green sea of threes.
My little sister turned her back
took two clovers
ripped one leaf from each
twisted both stems together
and called, “Look I found one!”
I used to do that
so I almost told her it wasn’t real
not a real lucky clover.
But then
I remembered how Grandpa says
"You make your own luck."
I gave my little sister a thumbs up
and she smiled.

© Amy LV


Proper Fractions
by Kate Coombs of Book Aunt

Whole numbers endlessly march up the line,
their long journey never is done.
But fractions stay home to slice up the space
that lies between 0 and 1.

The whole numbers always add units:
plus one and plus one and plus one.
The fractions divide it, then use only part,
for some reason, they think that's fun.

A fraction may cut up the unit
like a pizza into six, eight, or four.
Still, the work's microscopic: a fraction can cut
that one into a billion or more.

The fractions look sadly restricted,
as they slice and re-slice the same space.
Yet they can divide it in infinite ways,
though the fractions seem stuck in one place.

Oh, the whole numbers grab our attention
with their soldierly march up the line.
But there in the space between 0 and 1
the fraction world plays with design.

--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved


UNDER THE APPLE TREE
by Diane Mayr of Random Noodling

One little bee seeing an apple under a tree,
flew back to the hive as quickly as could be.

Two curious bees seeing the first bee's dance,
flew away from the hive at the very first chance.

They scouted around, then flew back home,
alerting three more at the honeycomb.

Four hungry bees who just couldn't wait,
flew off to the apple tree and ate and ate.

They ate and ate and ate some more,
and the last five bees got nothing but the core.

Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.


MATH JUNGLE
by Violet Nesdoly

The number pathways
in my brain
are grown over
with words

Mental machete’s
what I need
to clear the nouns
and verbs

And make again
a traffic trail
for all those
integers

© 2010 by Violet Nesdoly (all rights reserved)


Number Facts
By Liz Korba of Correspondence.org

IMAGINARY numbers!
Do they vanish in thin air?
My teacher says in sixth grade math -
“Just know that they are there.”

I did a little Google search -
According to one text
REAL numbers and IMAGINED ones
Create what’s called COMPLEX.

IRRATIONALS struck me this way
Since they’re so very long,
But they’re still REAL though they won’t stop
(I’m shocked that I was wrong.)

The NATURALS I understand -
To order and to count.
And NEGATIVES make sense to me –
Alas, my bank account!

The INTEGERS are NEGATIVES
And NATURALS with “OH”
A most important number
They discovered long ago.

Its other name is ZERO
Somehow EVEN – with no leaning
POSITIVE or NEGATIVE,
Divide with – there’s “no meaning.”

Which leads me to the “number”
That I read about today
It’s NaN – that’s “NOT A NUMBER”
And it’s quiet – so they say.

Ten digits should be simple
(Though INFINITY’s a lot.)
I fear I don’t KNOW numbers
Be that RATIONAL or not.

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.

Poetry Friday Is Here!

Memorial Day (my mother still calls it Decoration Day) is this Monday. Decoration Day was first celebrated to honor Union soldiers killed during the Civil War. It was later expanded after World War I to honor all those men and women killed in service to their country.

I've been thinking quite a bit about our troops who are still deployed, those who've returned home, and those who have not made it back. I spent some time looking for a poem to honor them, but when I remembered this poem by Stephen Crane, I decided it was the piece I wanted to share.

from War is Kind ["Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind"]
by Stephen Crane

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

        Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
        Little souls who thirst for fight,
        These men were born to drill and die.
        The unexplained glory flies above them,
        Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom—
        A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Read the poem in its entirety.

We're kickin' it old-school this week. Leave me a note about your post and I'll add it to the list.

On Writing Poetry

Jeannine Atkins shares some thoughts on Poetry and Computers.

Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating shares some thoughts about process.

Sylvia Vardell of Poetry for Children shares a wealth of poetry news.

Original Poetry

Charles Ghigna (Father Goose) shares a poem entitled Baseball Dreams.

Tiel Aisha Ansari of Knocking From Inside shares a poem entitled Epithalmium.

Julie Larios of The Drift Record shares a villanelle entitled At Play.

Toby Speed of The Writer's Armchair shares a poem entitled Gardening Tips.

Jim Danielson of Haunts of a Children's Writer shares a poem entitled Life.

Diane Mayr of Random Noodling shares some news and an award winning poem in the form of a haiga.

Kurious Kitty of Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet shares a newspaper blackout poem entitled Our Destiny.

Heidi Mordhorst of my juicy little universe shares a poem entitled Indians.

Sara Lewis Holmes of Read*Write*Believe shares a poem entitled Dedication and directs us to RN Clara Hart's post at The Sandbox.

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm shares a poem entitled Science is Like Writing.

Elaine of Wild Rose Reader shares a number of book spine poems.

But wait! Elaine also blogs at Blue Rose Girls where she shares another book spine poem.

Kate Coombs of Book Aunt shares some original poems of war in honor of the upcoming holiday.

Poetry of Others

Mary Lee of A Year of Reading shares some thoughts and poetic excerpts on the race to the finish line that is the winding down of the school year. Her post is entitled Hurdles and Sprinting and the Finish Line.

Ruth of There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town shares The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling.

Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan's alphabet soup shares The Love-Hat Relationship by Aaron Belz.

Carol of Carol's Corner shares Encouraged by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

The folks at The Stenhouse Blog share the poem Your World by Georgia Douglas Johnson. Taken from Debbie Miller’s recent book, Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, Taking Action, K-5, you have an opportunity to win the book if you leave a comment describing what the poem means to you.

Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference introduces us to Doug Savage's Poet-Bot.

Laura Evans of Teach Poetry K-12 shares Antiphon for the Holy Spirit by Hildegard of Bingen.

Laura Purdie Salas shares an excerpt from the poem Cages by Jane Kenyon.

Sally of The Write Sisters shares some poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Little Willow of Bildungsroman shares The Town of Hay by Sam Walter Foss.

Karen Edmisten shares Waving Goodbye by Wesley McNair.

Fiddler of Rockhound Place shares The Best Thing in the World by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Book Reviews

Linda Kulp of Write Time shares a review of Conversations with a Poet: Inviting Poetry in K-12 Classrooms by Betsy Franco.

Sally of Paper Tigers shares a review of Jack Pine by Christopher Patton.

Anastasia Suen of Picture Book of the Day shares a review of An Egret's Day by Jane Yolen.

Janet of All About Books with Janet Squires shares a review of Mr. Ferlinghetti's Poem by David Frampton.

Happy poetry Friday all!

My Two Favorite Science Jokes

I have a special place in my heart for science jokes. I could always count on my dad to chuckle along with me. Since I cannot share them with him, I'm giving them to you. Just promise me you'll laugh with me!

Joke 1
Two strands of DNA are talking and one says to the other "Do these genes make me look fat?"

Joke 2
Two Hydrogen atoms were walking down the street.
One atom said, "Hey! I just lost an electron!"
The other atom said "Are you sure?"
The first atom replied, "Yes, I'm positive!"

Are you smiling? Or confused? Do you have a favorite science joke? If so, please share!

Monday Poetry Stretch - By the Numbers

Summer school starts today! I will once again be teaching preservice teachers HOW to teach math. While elementary math is certainly composed of more than this, numbers and number sense are a huge part of what is taught. I generally open this class by sharing some mathematically-inclined poems, including Sandburg's "Arithmetic" (I actually show a video ), Numbers by Mary Cornish, "Take a Number" by Mary O'Neill, and this little gem by Patricia Hubbell.

Equations
by Patricia Hubbell

Pi r squared is forty-two,
Diameter is three,
Two and two add up to four,
(Do you love me?)
X and Y equations,
Add the number two,
Twelve and twelve are twenty-four,
(I love you.)

Poem ©Pat Hubbell . All rights reserved.

As you can see, I've been thinking a lot about math lately and think it's high time we write about it. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Poetry Stretch Results - Colorful Poems

The challenge this week was to write a poem that is about or relies on color(s). Here are the results.

Sea Is Sound; Air Is a Door Ajar
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

Sea is sound; air is a door ajar.
Sound is glass; door is the color of plums.
Glass is brine, stippled with plum-warm rain.
Brine is black; sea is glass-colored sound.
Air is a jar of warm plums.
Sound of rain is a door:
Sea stippled, brine black, jar glass.

©2010 by Steven Withrow. All rights reserved.


Puce
by Kate Coombs of Book Aunt

You never hear red, yellow, and puce
when kindergarteners talk crayons.

Never lavender and puce when girls
and their mothers plan bridal showers.

Puce isn't painted into sunsets
in poems, or the shadows of flower petals.

It's never puce for a hero's t-shirt
or a heroine's dress, except

in historical fiction, and even then
puce is reserved for unpleasant

teapot-wielding ladies named Gertrude.
Poor puce, which sounds like "puke"

and is uncertain—dark red or a sort
of grayish purple, depending.

To finish off the indignity,
its Latin root means "flea."

--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved


Lee Wind of I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the hell do I read? left this poem in the comments.

Blue is a song
It makes me look in
A spring feeds the river
I go for a swim
Each stroke gets me nearer
To the story-filled sea
Blue is a song
And a feeling set free.


Brown
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm

Brown is a color that feels like a friend.
It's that sweater you wear every day.
Brown is cool earth in a garden you tend
on the very last weekend in May.
Brown is a quiet old cat in your lap
purring secrets into your soul.
Brown is firewood.
A nest full of eggs.
Warm oatmeal in a bowl.
If you ask my favorite color
I think of cornstalks and tea.
Let others have neon and rainbow.
Brown is the color for me.

© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater


Color Smells
By Liz Korba of Correspondence.org

The colors in a crayon box
Smell all the same, it’s true
But that’s the scent of crayons,
Not of red or green or blue.
Bright yellow smells like lemonade
Lime green like new mowed grass
Red is the rose perfume of spring
Black’s hot-tarred road - or gas.
Dark purple – that’s grape jelly
Pure white – new fallen snow
Brown is a blend of dirt and leaves
That fell some time ago.
Blue is the air beneath the sky,
Blue changes with each season
But orange has an orange smell -
For some peculiar reason…


SPRING LEAVES
by Carol Weis

Encircle me in lushness
wrap your branches
tightly about me
as I breath in your
verdant bouquet.
Envelope me in
your innocence,
the chartreuse of
your tender glow,
oh soft and delicate
leaves of spring
just one last time
before you go.

© Carol Weis, all rights reserved


Silhouettes
by Violet Nesdoly

Black cormorants claim the poles
silhouettes against the sky
knobs, columns or a spread
of wings hanging to dry.

© Violet Nesdoly (all rights reserved)


GRAY
by Diane Mayr of Random Noodling

Two months before he and Mrs. Lincoln
went to Ford's Theater, the president

had a portrait taken at Mr. Gardner's
Gallery. The photographer caught

the shadow of Mr. Lincoln. He was
by then, merely a body without its soul.

Little did John Wilkes Booth know,
his bullet would only be the coups de grace.

Note: this was based on one of the saddest photos I have ever seen. It is the quintessence of gray for me. It was taken by Alexander Gardner, who, ironically, later "shot" the co-conspirators in Lincoln's assassination.


maize
Doraine Bennett of Dori Reads

golden tassels bend
beneath yellow cornsilk sun
a buttercream breeze


sister AE of Having Writ shares a poem entitled Dressing in Black.

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.

Nonfiction Picture Books - What I Love and What Makes Me Crazy

I love nonfiction. I do, I do, I do. And I can say without a doubt how far those books have come in style and readability since I was a kid. Even the books I used when I first started teaching can't hold a candle to the great stuff that's being published these days. What follows is an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of nonfiction picture books. Please note that EVERY book listed here, whether used to illustrate strengths or weaknesses, is a WINNER in my book. I do not hesitate to recommend any of these titles.

What I Love, Love, Love
Here's what I love about the current crop of nonfiction picture books.

Illustrations - Holy mackerel! I weeded my bookshelves this time last year and the illustrations and photographs in some of the books produced in the 80s were downright laughable. The books I'm seeing now are SLICK. There's just no better word for it. Those with photographs are gorgeous. Some writers use their own incredible pieces (Nic Bishop, Sarah Campbell), while others rely on a growing body of stock photos that are just as beautifully crafted. And how about those author/illustrators? Their books come in a range of artistic styles and media, but the marriage of text and illustration produces stunning results. Don't believe me? Consider the quality of work produced by the likes of Brian Floca, Gail Gibbons, Lita Judge, Steve Jenkins, Loreen Leedy, Meghan McCarthy, Jeanette Winter, and others. Even non-readers and early readers can find things to enjoy and learn from in these books as they begin to interpret and make meaning from the illustrations.

Quality of Writing - I truly believe that writers of nonfiction for children have gotten more skilled over the years. From texts for the youngest readers to more sophisticated works for the 9-12 age range, it's clear that these folks take the craft of writing seriously. Not only do they manage to share essential bits of information in interesting ways, they organize and arrange the information in a manner that draws readers in and propels them along. And please don't buy into the notion that nonfiction is boring. These people are terrific storytellers and use their skills to great advantage in producing highly readable informational texts.

If you're interested in learning more about the craft of writing nonfiction, what inspires these authors, and how they go about their work, be sure to visit the blog I.N.K.: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids.

Wealth of Topics - For a long time it seemed to me that all the nonfiction texts I read, particularly those in science, covered the same ground. These days, however, authors of nonfiction are opening doors to topics big and small. Looking for a book on the history of the alphabet? Check out Ox, House, Stick: The History of Our Alphabet. Interested in learning about floating lighthouses? Look no further than Lightship. Are you both grossed out and fascinated by tapeworms and lice? Then you won't want to miss What’s Eating You?: Parasites–The Inside Story. I could go on with a list of quirky, engaging, intriguing and highly entertaining titles as there are many of them.

Not only are the topics covered today more interesting and varied, the thematic approaches taken by many authors are downright genius. How do animals use bubbles? The book Bubble Homes and Fish Farts has a wealth of answers. Have you ever thought about sibling relationships in nature? You can learn all about them in Sisters and Brothers: Sibling Relationships in the Animal World. If you've wondered about something, chances are an author has too, and if you know where to look there's probably a book out there waiting for you.

What Frustrates Me
While my love for nonfiction is very real, there are two things about nonfiction picture books that make me completely CRAZY! I don't generally fault authors for these missing features, as they seem to be design choices. If any editors, agents, or other publishing type folks are reading this, I'd love an insider's view on these nagging issues. To some readers, reviewers, and teachers using nonfiction picture books, these choices often don't make a whole lot of sense.

MISSING Page Numbers - I know that a lot of picture books don't have pages numbers. This makes sense since the standard is 32 pages, though some titles fall in the range of 24-48 pages. For fiction titles I don't see a reason to pinpoint specific pages, but for many nonfiction titles it's absolutely essential. Suppose I want to point readers to the pages on the Dark Zone in Jenkins' book Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. How exactly can I do that? Additionally, how can I connect the extensive back matter with the pages of text? The answer is, I can't. Why are so many nonfiction picture books lacking page numbers?

While this may not seem like a big deal to some folks, I find it extremely frustrating. Sometimes when I'm writing a review I want to point readers to a particular page where I've described the text in unusual detail or want them to view something specific about an illustration. In a recent review of Lita Judge's book Born to Be Giants: How Baby Dinosaurs Grew to Rule the World I wrote, "Kudos to Judge for making even ferocious meat-eating babies look appealing. Don't believe me? Check out the illustration of the Troodon hatchlings being fed by a parent (near the end of the book)." Imagine how much more precise this review would have been if I could have said something like "Look to the illustrations on pages 37 and 39 for examples."

Lack of page numbers also means that there can be no table of contents and no index. Now, lack of these things isn't a deal-breaker for me when I'm reviewing a nonfiction picture book as I don't often expect them, but for books chock-full of facts they are really useful tools. Let's take Nic Bishop's book Frogs as an example. This title comes in at 48 pages and while it has no table of contents, it does have an extensive index. If I'm a kid interested in dart poison frogs (1, 2, 24-25, 42, 43, 44, 47), frog tongues (15, 44), or how frogs breathe (8, 30, 32, 35, 36), I know EXACTLY where to go. For nonfiction picture books written in a more traditional narrative structure (think biographies like Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter or historical accounts like Meghan McCarthy's Aliens Are Coming!: The True Account Of The 1938 War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast), page numbers are not really necessary nor are they particularly helpful. But for many kids reading nonfiction, half the fun in perusing these texts lies in their ability to jump around to different bits of interest. In fact, this "a la carte" style of reading is quite common. For those who want to read selectively (picking and choosing specific areas of text) instead of reading in order from front to back, the table of contents and index are essential tools.

**Here's another thought about page numbers. When young readers are learning about conventions of print they need to learn to find page numbers (are they always in the same location?), follow them, and use them to look for specific sections of a book, even a short one. Without page numbers they simply cannot do this. So, while page numbers may not be essential to understanding a story and finding your way around in it, they are vitally important to kids learning to read.**

MISSING Sources - Let's say you've just finished a terrifically interesting book and want to know more. Where did the author get his or her information? Is it accurate? Can it be trusted? Where can you go to learn more? Without a list of sources or acknowledgments, there is no way to know. I wouldn't say a bibliography or list of references is essential in a nonfiction picture book, but it sure would be nice. If you've written a book about sea turtle rescue, it would be nice to know you've consulted with the experts. Now you can argue that Nic Bishop doesn't have references in his books, but the man has a PhD and extensive experience. I trust him. (I know, it's a terrible double-standard, but there you go. Perhaps even a nod to the author's qualifications would help.)

When authors have limited room to tell their stories, I can understand not wanting to devote space to this, but an author's note, end notes, additional sources, etc. often add a great deal to the reading experience. April Pulley Sayre's book Vulture View is 32 pages long. She devotes pages 30 and 31 to additional information about vultures and includes links to a helpful web site. While this section does not include references, readers will find on the copyright page that she thanks reviewers who include the Science Director of the Peregrine Fund, the Director of Conservation Science at the Acopian Center for Conservation Learning at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a professor of wildlife science at Virginia Tech, and the Vice President for Policy at the American Bird Conservancy. Phew! This brief thank you tells me that the book has been looked at by the experts and that I can be confident with the accuracy of its contents.

In the grand scheme of things these are really minor complaints, but they do affect the way I read nonfiction picture books. How about you? Do you think I'm all wet or do you agree? What do you love or find frustrating about the nonfiction picture books you're seeing these days?

Nonfiction Monday - Mathematical Reading

I picked up a bunch of books at my local independent bookstore recently, several of which I can't wait to put to use in my math classes this summer.

First Shapes in Buildings, written by Penny Ann Lane - Using photographs of architectural sites, Lane introduces readers to a range of two- and three-dimensional shapes and prods them to consider how and why the sites were built that way. I'm thrilled that this one uses such creative forms to highlight the shapes. Readers will find sites from around the world including Stonehenge (UK), the Temple of Anon at Karnak (Egypt), the Ka'bah in Makkah (Saudi Arabia), St. Peter's Piazza in Rome (Italy), the Imperial Villa of Katsura in Kyoto (Japan), the Masjid-in shah Mosque in Isfahan (Iran) and others. Each double-page spread includes a full-page photo of an architectural site and a facing page with a simple illustration of the shape being featured and text that explains the related aspect of the structure. Here is a sample of the text from the cylinder page. The photograph shows a row of columns from the Temple of Anon at Karnak.

These huge cylinders look like tree trunks.
The people who built this temple believed that walking
through this forest of columns would remind them
of their journey to the next life.

How would you feel if you walked through
all these massive cylinders?

I loved the way this text read and looked. The text and illustrations are clear, crisp and bright. Students will love finding the shapes in the 12 illustrations. It ends with a photographic glossary that identifies each building and its location in the world. This book will be the perfect resource for introducing a lesson on shapes in the environment and a terrific jumping off point for kids creating their own shape books using photos of architectural sites, either famous or local.

For Good Measure: The Ways We Say How Much, How Far, How Heavy, How Big, How Old, written by Ken Robbins - Since we here in the US still cling to the customary system of measurement, teachers must be familiar with it and the metric system when teaching measurement. When I teach HOW to teach this topic I like to throw in a good bit of history and focus on nonstandard measurement. My students actually use their bodies to measure to get a feel for hands, fathoms, cubits and other "antiquated" measures. (Oh, how I wish they were!). Ken Robbins has just made my job of introducing these concepts a whole lot easier with his new book. Here's how it begins.

Certain words and phrases that we use to describe things are just not very specific: "lots," "scads," and "many," for instance, or pairs of opposites like "far" and "near," "big" and "small," "light" and "heavy," "new and "old." With words like that it's hard to know exactly what somebody means. Sometimes it doesn't matter so much, but when it does matter, we need standards of measurement that we can compare things to—units we can all agree on.

Each measurement in the book is accompanied by a photographic reference, a description of how the unit is measured and, if available, a bit of historical background. The text opens with measures of length and distance and includes the foot, span, hand, cubit, yard, fathom, mile (and pace), furlong, rod, league, and light-year. If these sound familiar, it is because we still use these terms! Horses are measured in hands, races run in furlongs, fabric cut in yards. After distance comes area, then weights, liquid measures, dry capacities and time. This book is chock full of information that is highlighted by lush illustrations, largely of Robbins making.

I do see one weakness with this title and that is the lack of back matter. Once the section on time ends, the last page of the book shows an image of the Earth with a measure of its diameter. I would have liked additional resources, a bibliography, or some list of references to show where this wealth of information came from. Don't get me wrong, I loved the book, it just ended with me wanting and needing a bit more.

Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature, written by Sarah Campbell with photographs by Sarah Campbell and Richard Campbell - This one begins with a series of photographs of flowers with different numbers of petals. The number of petals on the flowers—1, 2, 3, 5, and 8—are used to introduce the Fibonacci sequence and how the pattern is created. After looking at a few more flower species with numbers of petals in the Fibonacci sequence, Campbell shares other examples that include the spirals seen in pine cones, sunflowers, pineapples, and the nautilus shell. The text finishes with this encouragement.

Not all numbers in nature are Fibonacci numbers. A dogwood has 4 petals, and an amaryllis has 6. A garden snail and the fiddlehead on the fern are spirals, but they don't have the same shape as the nautilus. The next time you are outside, take a close look at the plants and animals. See if you can find Fibonacci numbers, spirals, or some other pattern. The are growing all around.

Campbell's book ends with a page of additional information on Fibonacci numbers and a helpful glossary.

Though not topically connected, what ties these three books together are their superb illustrations and clearly written texts. I recommend them all as terrific resources for integrating literacy and the study of math.

This post was written for Nonfiction Monday. Hosting this week is Carol at Rasco From RIF. Do take some time to check out all the great posts highlighting nonfiction this week.