POETRY BOOKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

                         http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bees-snails-and-peacock-tails-betsy-franco/1112537390?ean=9781416903864

bees, snails, & peacock tails by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins

Plot Summary

bees, snails, & peacock tails is an excellent poetry book all children will enjoy. The book is filled with colorful pictures and poetic lines which allow the reader to enter a magical world. The different shapes, such as circles, triangles and hexagons, found throughout the book allow the reader to see the world around us. The story follows the adventures from birds flying in a V shaped assembly to straight army like ants all the way to a sneaky snake filled with diamonds shapes on its back.

Analysis

The bees, snails, & peacock tails poetry picture book contains simple rhymes that complement the illustrations found on each page. Children will find this poetry book enjoyable and easy to understand because of the rhymes it contains without forcing the word meaning. The poem contains short lines creating a staccato rhythm, such as the phrase, “They sit in the center admiring their art, and wait for those flies who aren’t quite as smart.” The rhythm, while reading aloud, allows the reader to connect with the story and the tempo of the poem does not allow for the meaning to be misunderstood. The language of the poem gives meaning to the story because of the clear words that the author uses. This type of language allows the reader to use their imagination by following both the words and the illustrations in the book. Although the book has illustrations and they complement the poem’s text, the story itself leaves images in your head about the beauty of nature and its various shapes; the round sun, the star fish, the spiral snail etc.

Each page along with the following page is filled with the same illustration. The illustration then comes to life and gives the book extraordinary patterns. This wonderful poetry book is related to different kinds of animals as well as symmetrical shapes. For example, children will see similarities in the Moth’s symmetry and its three dimensional parts. The Moth is illustrated by using different colors and textures. The bee illustration shows how bees create hexagon beehives. The author also demonstrates how intelligent they are because the hives hexagon shape cones all follow the same pattern.  Another illustration is the camouflage snake, which the reader can easily see how it passes through the dessert full of rocks displaying its diamond shapes found on its body.

This colorful book will show children how nature and animals decorate the world with different kinds of shapes. For example in one picture there are birds flying across a sunset forming a V shape creating a beautiful background. At the end of the book it offers factual information related to all the animals depicted in the story. Children will also learn a little about how different animals behave in our environment. The age range for this story is three to seven years old.

Reviews:

“This inviting book is bound to spark more careful observation of the shapes and colors in the reader's natural world.” -- Publishers Weekly, June 30, 2008.

“this is a lovely book that will work well as a read-aloud, connect with the concepts of shapes and patterns that are frequently part of early childhood curriculum and provide a springboard for discussion.” -- Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2008.

Connections:

Activities-

Children can go outside and write about what they see around them. 

Related book-

From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman

Bibliography:

2008. "BEES, SNAILS, & PEACOCK TAILS." Kirkus Reviews 76, no. 14: 149. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 2, 2013).

2008. "Bees, Snails, & Peacock Tails: Patterns & Shapes…Naturally." Publishers Weekly 255, no. 26: 183. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 2, 2013).

Franco, Betsy and Steve Jenkins. 2008. Bees, snails, & peacock tails. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781416903864.

                             http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/red-sings-from-treetops-joyce-sidman/1100302792?ean=9780547562131

Red Sings from Treetop by Joyce Sidman

Plot summary

Red Sings from Treetop by Joyce Sidman is a wonderful picture book filled with poetic phrases that talk about the earth’s seasons. The seasons are all represented by different colors, for example red, pink, white and blue all speak to us during the spring time. However, these same colors also come to life during the winter, summer and fall. An example of this is where “Green is new in spring” but “Green is queen in summer.”  The seasons are also accompanied by flowers, rain, trees, and different little animals children will enjoy.

Analysis

Author Joyce Sidman uses a free verse rhythm approach. The rhythm approach can be witnessed in the example, “In spring, White sounds like storm: snapped twigs and bouncing hail, blink of lightning and rattling BOOM!.”  Most of the words do not rhyme however there is a “magical flow” that happens while reading the story. The language of the story includes some metaphors, similes and personification which make the story more fascinating. Metaphors such as “In spring, White sounds like storms.” require the reader to use their intellect and  onomatopoeia sound words allow the reader to see what the author is expressing, for example “snapped twigs and bouncing hail, blink of lightning and rattling BOOM!”. In this particular phrase the reader can actually imagine twigs snapping and hail bouncing all over the place. The poet also personifies the colors; the lines “Yellows grows wheels”, “White is resting”, as well as “Green is Shy” are perfect examples of this.

Like I mention before, the rhythm of this long poetic book is mostly written in free verse. There are a couple of rhymes in the story like “Green trills from trees, clings to Pup’s knees, covers all with leaves, leaves, leaves!”. However, for the most part the story is free verse. The poem uses long couplets rhyming lines like, “Then, suddenly, sparkling spring sky!” which keep the reader interested.

The illustration of the book brings vivid images where children can use their imagination and enjoy every word they read. For instance there is a phrase that reads “SUMMER:  In SUMMER, White Clinks in drinks. Yellow melts everything it touches…smells like butter, tastes like salt”. In this phrase the author is talking about the yellow sun during summer were readers can use their sense of taste, smell and sight. In each page the characters are the same color as the seasons that they are interacting with. The illustrations are also appropriate for the text, which allow a child to easily follow along. Each page is full of colors with a warm touch on each illustration.

The poem story here does not leave the reader sad or happy. Instead it grabs the minds attention and does not let it go until the end. This poetry book is appropriate for children ages 5-8 years old.

Reviews:

Children will find many small stories waiting to be told within the detailed paintings and enjoy looking at them over and over. -- School Library Journal, April 2009

The regal elegance is sure to charm. -- Publishers Weekly, February 16, 2009

Connections:

Activities-

Children can learn the basic elements of poetry; like rhythm, rhyme, sound, language, imagery and emotions spending quality time on each element.

Understanding the color wheel and showing the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, and complementary colors is another activity that can be used with this title.

Children can write small poems with illustrations of their favorite seasons.

Bibliography:

2009. "Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors." Publishers Weekly 256, no. 7: 127. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 3, 2013).

Roach, Julie. 2009. "Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors." School Library Journal 55, no. 4: 126. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 3, 2013).

Sidman, Joyce and Pamela Zagarenski. 2009. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547014944

                                    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stop-pretending-sonya-sones-sonya/1030721364?ean=9780756942502

 Stop pretending: what happened when my big sister went crazy by Sonya Sones

Plot Summary

STOP PRETENDING is a novel in verse by Sonya Sones. This book offers a chronological story followed by a sequence of meaningful poems based on the author’s big sister who suffered a devastating mental illness when she was a young girl. Sones’ poem words offer meaningful emotions showing her feelings through the whole story.  At the beginning of the story, the author introduces her complete family to the audience by giving a sense of how she perceived them. Sonya is going through a lot and it seems nobody cares. Sones’ visits her sister often at the mental hospital and she tries very hard to understand why her sister refuses to belong to the real world. There is nothing she can do but survive the humiliation at school as well as the lack of attention from her parents. Sones feels depressed, lost and hopeless as she copes with her family, friends and her sister’s sickness.

Critical Analysis

Stop pretending: what happened when my big sister went crazy written in poem lines consists of imagery, similes and mixed emotions. The book is broken down into several free verse poems, each covering a different day, time period, event or scene. The book is not very long, but once you begin to read, it is very hard to put back down.

“My stunned parents stare, like witnesses at a car crash,” and “She wishes she could get small enough to float right out through the keyhole of that six-inch-thick iron door on a sea of her own tears.” These are just two examples of figurative language Sonya uses throughout the book which helps the reader understand what is taking place inside the characters mind. The imagery of the poem creates a unique use of language by providing a vivid mental picture from the poems words. For instance, “but when he meets Sister, he handles it pretty well, even when she whacks herself hard on the side of her head and tells us she’s trying to kill the fly that’s buzzing around in her brain.” Here the author describes an example of the level of her sister’s sickness by mentioning the fly in her brain. The book is filled with emotional moments that leave the reader wanting to know more. The story was originally a journal turned into a novel verse, allowing the true and honest feelings of the author to be exposed. One of the emotional moments is in the poem called FOUND AND LOST. In this poem Sones’ lets us know how important her sister is to her as well as their strong bond between them. The reader can see this in the following verse; “I can remember the day I fell asleep under the bed and everyone thought I was lost. While the rest of them rushed off to search the neighborhood, you wandered through the house calling out, “Cookieeeee, we’re going to the perrrrr!” Your words woke me and I scrambled out from under the bed. I remember feeling startled by the enormous hug you gave me... When I was lost, you were the one who found me,” and readers can feel the enormous love that exists between the two sisters.

Author Sonya Sones provides an author’s note at the end of the book which explain many things one that the story is truly based on the author and her family.

This book is recommended for young adults. 

Reviews:

It is an intense and brutally honest story, told in a succession of powerful poems that take us into the cyclone of the narrator's emotions: grief, anger, guilt, resentment, horror, and, ultimately, acceptance. – Adolescence, Spring 2001.

All of the emotions and feelings are here, the tightness in the teen's chest when thinking about her sibling in the hospital, her grocery list of adjectives for mental illness, and the honest truth in the collection's smallest poem, "I don't want to see you./I dread it./There./I've said it." -- School Library Journal, October 1999.

Connections:

Word meaning-

When students read the poem story, they can choose difficult words and find their definitions and make new sentences with the new words.

Finding background information about the author Sonya Sones and what other books she has published that is interesting for the reader.

Finding more about mental illnesses in teenagers and what we can do to help those with a similar illness?

Bibliography -

2001. "Stop Pretending (Book review)." Adolescence 36, no. 141: 182. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 9, 2013).

Korbeck, Sharon. 1999. "Grades 5 & Up: Fiction." School Library Journal 45, no. 10: 160. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 9, 2013).

Sones, Sonya. 1999. Stop pretending: what happened when my big sister when crazy. New York: HarperCollins Children’s Books. ISBN 9780064462181.