BOOKSPEAK!: POEMS ABOUT BOOKS by Laura Purdie Salas

Author Laura Salas

Salas, Laura Purdie. 2011. BOOKSPEAK!: POEMS ABOUT BOOKS. Ill. by Josee Bisaillon. New York: Clarion. ISBN 9780547223001

Review

Bookspeak! is a whimsical and artistic approach to explain in fun poetry what the books on the shelf are saying.  A call to readers to look at their book jackets, pick them off the shelf, engage in their stories and take them along on vacations.  The mood of the book easily transitions between playful and serious.  LIGHTS OUT AT THE BOOKSTORE describes the party going on after hours among the books, while IF A TREE FALLS compares unread books to a story trapped inside of a cage.      Rhyme is used throughout including the first poem CALLING ALL READERS with I’ll tell you a story/I’ll spin you a rhyme/I’ll spill some ideas/and we’ll travel through time.  SKYWRITING uses alliteration with line after line/black birds/forming the flocks/page after page/and singing a story.  Salas also incorporates an acrostic in TOP SECRET, assonance in CALLING ALL READERS and PICTURE THIS by starting each line with “I’ll” or “I’m.”  For example, I’m the belle of the ball/I’m the star of the show!  Simple, but abstract, younger readers may have difficulty applying the personification.  For young adults, the clever poems accompanied by choppy, yet clean, and colorful illustrations will motivate readers to open a book! 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  This would be a fun activity to do before school lets out for summer to encourage kids to read over the summer.  Have your reading area set up like a beach with beach balls hanging, paper mache fish hanging, seaweed across the books and a relaxing spot with a chair and an umbrella.  Play the game, “I’m going on a vacation and I’m taking _______.”  Students of all ages like this game.  You go through the alphabet letters filling in the blanks with what you will take on a vacation.  For example, for the letter A, a student might say, “I’m going on vacation and I’m taking antibiotics/apple/ac adapter/air mattress.”  Just one answer will do.  Go around the room and through the alphabet. 

Follow up Activity:  Discuss with students why they might enjoy reading over their summer vacation.  For younger students, pull stories about summer and vacations for them to see.  For age appropriate students, pull verse novels (for TWU students, use Dr. Vardell’s A SAMPLING OF POPULAR VERSE NOVELS).  Between this meeting and the next, have students write a few sentences about a book they read during the school year that was their favorite.  Then, compile the book list and short paragraph summaries and distribute to the class as recommendations for them to read during the summer. 

VACATION TIME

Whenever I’m checked out, it’s like a vacation.

I’m scanned and I’m packed for a new destination!

I’ve floated in airplanes. I’ve lain on the beach.

I’ve hidden in bunk beds – just out of your reach.

Been stained by spaghetti, been splashed at the lake.

I’ve shared your adventures.  I’ve kept you awake.

At night in your sleeping bag – too dark to see –

You whipped out a flashlight to keep reading me.

I never quite know where my reader is bound,

and hundreds of times I’ve been lost and then found.

It’s good to get home, look around, see what’s new,

But before long I’m antsy… A trip’s overdue!

A KICK IN THE HEAD: AN EVERYDAY GUIDE TO POETIC FORMS selected by Paul Janeczko



Paul Janeczko



Janeczko, Paul. 2005. A KICK IN THE HEAD: AN EVERYDAY GUIDE TO POETIC FORMS. Ill. by Chris Raschka. Massachusetts: Candlewick. ISBN 9780763606626

Review

Twenty-nine poetic forms including haiku, cinquain, tanka, and senryu are explained and modeled in Janeczko’s compilation A KICK IN THE HEAD.  A memorable way to learn the poetic forms, this book appears to be for children but would be more appropriate for young adults.  Its use in middle school and high school libraries and classrooms is ideal due to its abstract and higher-level thinking material.  The poetry leans more towards a playful mood rather than serious or emotional.   

Poems selected by Janeczko are written by quality authors like J. Patrick Lewis, Ogden Nash, Georgia Heard, Bobbi Katz and Janeczko himself.  Each poem highlights a form of poetry.  To focus on the haiku listed below, Buson describes an active scene in nature.  To take the haiku structure but write about human behavior, this form becomes senryu as shown with Kristine O’Connell George: First day, new school year/backpack harbors a fossil…/last June’s cheese sandwich.

The Table of Contents is a quick reference guide to find the poem and form needed.  The back also includes Notes on the Forms which is really neat and could be referenced in Language Arts classes everywhere.  In this section, more information is given on each form and a paragraph explaining the structure.   

Figurative language is used in the poetry selected by Janeczko.  Personification is used in the concrete poem, “A Kick in the Head” by Joan Bransfield Graham: Poetry… opens its arms to me/jabs me in the heart.  Simile is used in “Amelia Cramped” by comparing pilot Amelia in a cockpit to a bird in a box.  Rhyme is used in some poems that allow it, like in the clerihew by E.C. Bentley: Edgar Allan Poe/was passionately fond of roe/he always liked to chew some/when writing something gruesome. 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Take students outside on a nature walk or if you live in West Texas like I do, you may want to pass out pictures that have pretty nature scenes.  In small groups, have students brainstorm words that describe nature.  Explain the guidelines of writing a haiku and show examples including this poem about rain.

Follow up Activity:  Afterwards, give students time to write and illustrate a haiku of their own using words from their group’s brainstorming list.  Upper level students could discuss the conversation taking place in the midst of the spring rain in the poem. 

SPRING RAIN by Buson

In the rains of spring,

An umbrella and raincoat

Pass by, conversing.

RUBBER HOUSES by Ellen Yeomans

Yeomans, Ellen. 2007. RUBBER HOUSES. New York: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 9780316106474

Review

Through a course of poems, teenage Kit, experiences the cancer diagnoses of her brother and his eventual death.  She must then learn to cope with her grief, her family, and the return to school.  Tears may be shed but the ending will remind readers of hope, happiness, and the purpose of having relationships to heal. 

This verse novel tells a story and does not rely on rhyming, though there are instances of it.  Some poems use repetition; three sentences in a row starting with “This woman…” or “I miss…” where she states “I miss Callie/I miss swimming/I miss the outdoors.” 

As a reader, the place the story turned for me was in the poem SCAR TISSUE.  As she soaks in the bath, she begins scraping at blackened tile caulk and compares it to “deep scar tissue,” and “opening the wound.”  Who knew picking at tile caulk could be part of a grieving process?  The author also supplies such details and opportunities to visualize the events.  She describes phone calls from Kit’s friend Callie wanting to be there for her and the hoard of food in the trunk of the car not eaten because of her sadness.  She describes grieving parents and her brother’s bad habits that she doesn’t want to forget.  “Peeled his nails/low and raw/fingertips sore/and often bleeding” and “terrible singing voice/low and flat/mixed up tunes/confused lyrics” are two examples. 

This story has potential to be emotional and difficult for some to read if they have experienced something similar.  Most teenagers will be able to relate in some way as so many have dealt with tragedy and/or feeling separated from others and lonely.    An unlikely friendship with an older hardware store worker, Mr. Larkin, adds elements of surprise and hope to the story.      

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Have students identify an important event in their life.  It could be joyful, sad, emotional, exciting, devastating.  Have the students indicate an object, something tangible that represents their event.  For example, cotton candy may represent a day at the fair or bandana to represent a mom who had cancer. 

Follow up Activity:  Read the students the poem and then ask questions about how the molded tub caulk was a metaphor for Kit’s circumstances.  After discussion, have students think about their event again.  Using the intangible object, have students draw their intangible object and create a poem for the event and the object. 

Scar Tissue

Soaking in my tub

I notice

the ring of caulk blackened in the corners,

beneath the soap dish too

a scabbed wound of mildew.

I pick at it with fingers

and a rattail comb,

pulling out bits of crumbly scum and sealant

laying it along the side of the tub,

leaving a gaping one-inch slash.

Toweling off

I grab tweezers from the drawer,

and pull out more dark, stiff caulk.

Another couple inches of crevice revealed

where tile used to meet tub.

Focused I dig,

pull, scrape out

diseased scar tissue,

wiping with a washcloth

opening the wound to light and air.

Soon I’ll find my bathrobe,

get a screwdriver,

finish it right.

But for now I’ll continue with comb and

tweezers.