WORDS WITH WRINKLED KNEES by Barbara Juster Esbensen

Esbensen, Barbara Juster. 1986. WORDS WITH WRINKLED KNEES. Ill. by John Stadler. New York: Crowell. ISBN 0690045042

Review

Twenty animal words are described to evoke visualization through the eyes of Esbensen. Words like snake, wolf, and penguin are given characteristics which may show through the animal itself or the word and its letters.  Concrete items, these animals are abstractly portrayed in a fun and pensive way. Esbensen’s style is irregular and requires pauses and breaks to give meaning.  Sound is used throughout in poems such as Whale, Frog, and Snake with sound words like “splat!,” “whoooosh,” and “sssssssss.”  “Wide,” “Li” (the Li as in the first part of the word lion), and “white” are used in the poem Lion to create assonance.  Spider includes hyphenated, “ing” words to create rhythm and rhyme.  “Fast-biting,” “tight-wrapping,” and “eight-legged” make speaking about spiders roll off the tongue more easily.  In a collection where mosquito noses are compared to stilettos and penguins wear black slippers, a different approach is used to make animals and poetry a joyful experience.

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Including the letters from “giraffe,” add other letters and make cards with only one letter on them; enough for the class.  For instance, one card will have a g, another will have an I, while a third will have an r.  Have students hold letter cards up and without moving or talking, just by looking around, have them think about the letters and if they can spell an animal with the letters on student’s cards.  (We call this Words with Friends).  After a few minutes, let them get up and talk and try to create animal words with their letters, hoping that someone will figure out you can spell giraffe.  Before reading, give students a few fun facts about giraffes including height, average age, and habitat.

Follow up Activity:  In a box, write other animal names and have students draw for one.  The animal that they get, students should use other books to find a few fun facts and a poem or poetry book that goes with that animal.  If time allows, have students present their facts and poems. 

G I R A F F E

Quietly nibbling

Sneezing now and then

(because of the dust)   this word

munches on the leaves

of books lined up

on the topmost shelves

of high-ceilinged libraries

In the oldest

neighborhoods

in town

G I R A F F E

The whole word has been spray-painted

golden brown through a large

net    The pattern    (light

and shadow filtered through dirty

windows)     protects it

from sharp-eyed

librarians     who think they hear

someone eating paper

high above their heads

 G I R A F F E    a word with legs

so tall    with neck so long

it has never seen

its knees!

A shy word        G I R A F F E   might

take its favorite

food     right from your hand

Offer it a bite of

STEEPLE     TOWER     STRATOSHPERE and

Maybe it will follow you home

If you want to keep      G I R A F F E

in your room

you only need to take

the roof

off the house!

THIS BIG SKY by Pat Mora

Author Pat Mora
Photo by http://www.ncte.org/

Mora, Pat. 1998. THIS BIG SKY. Ill. by Steve Jenkins. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0590371207

Review

With fourteen poems, Mora brings life to the American Southwest.  Deserts, coyotes, snakes, raccoons, and the hot sun, are just a few of the mentioned characters in Mora’s poems. 

A multicultural book, Mora includes Spanish words and provides a glossary of these terms at the end.  She uses words like “vibora” and “paisano” to bring the culture and environment to life in a different way.   It grabs the reader’s attention and either connects with them or intrigues them.  Her poem, Suspense, is a good use of onomatopoeia as the words make you feel the action.  “Plink, plink,” “splatter” and “splash” show the rain and its presence.  I can read this poem and transport myself to this place. These poems do not necessarily rhyme but the stories they tell make it easy to picture them.  Urban Raccoon is another favorite of mine in this collection.  Her use of the five-senses makes it hard to read through without seeping into the story.  In this poem, you feel it and hear it with phrases like “strrrrretch onto the roof” and “scratch, scratch, scratches.”  The reader can almost touch the raccoon as you read about her thick coat/ringed tail/rubs her roundness/pudgy lady. It makes me want to curl up in bed!  The illustrations are vibrant, clean, and textured.  The way they are cut and placed together adds dimension and their effect on the senses. 

The tone of Mora’s poetry in this book is of intoxication.  An environment sometimes portrayed as barren and negative, Mora’s tone is the opposite.  I sense her amazement and wonder in the poems.  Each poem carefully highlights a different aspect of the Southwest.  

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Take students on a nature walk and have them document, in pairs, the things they see including plants, living things, the sky, and the weather.

Follow up Activity:  While still sitting outside and having read the poem, have students revisit their list of things they see and have them add to or rewrite them in more descriptive, sense-provoking ways.  Give them examples of “boil purple” and “prickly cactus.”  Then compare their first words to their later words to see OR FEEL the difference. 

Suspense

Wind chases itself

Around our house, flattens

Wild grasses

With one hot breath.

Clouds boil purple

and gray, roll

and roil. Scorpions

dart

under stones. Rabbit eyes peer

from the shelter of mesquite.

Thorny silence.

My paisano, the road runner,

paces, dashes into the rumble.

races from the plink, plink

splatter into his shadow,    leaps

at the crash   flash

splash,

sky rivers rushing into arroyos and

thirsty roots of prickly pears,

greening cactus.

MUNCHING: POEMS ABOUT EATING selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Author Lee Bennett Hopkins
Photo by Charles Egita

Hopkins, Lee Bennett, trans. 1985. MUNCHING: POEMS ABOUT EATING. Ill. by Nelle Davis. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0316372692

Review

This compilation is a playful read about foods and eating.  Readers will enjoy poetry about eating foods, wanting foods, preparing foods, and playing with foods!  Most of the poems are short and contain vocabulary for early readers. 

The meaning of the book is concrete as all of the poetry pertains to physical acts of or with food.  Some authors use figurative language like similes and metaphors.  The poem, Artichoke by Maxine W. Kumin, compares artichokes to jokes and games.  Fruited Rainbow by Charles Egita compares a fruit salad to a rainbow.  Others use hyperbole to appeal to readers in the poems The Pizza by Ogden Nash and The Perfect Turkey Sandwich by Steven Kroll. 

True rhyme is commonly used throughout the collection. In Spaghetti! Spaghetti! By Jack Prelutsky, the writer “can’t get enough” of the “wonderful stuff.”  Cake by David McCord uses assonance, “Take cake: a very easy rhyme for bake.”  Fun to read, this group of poems by well known and credible authors shows young readers just how much fun you can have with your food!

To name just a few of the authors included in the book, Ogden Nash, was noted by the New York Times as the country’s best known producer of humorous poetry. JackPrelutsky was awarded the Children’s Poet Laureate Award. During her career, Maxine W. Kumin was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  With construction paper, help students create a food by cutting and gluing paper.  For example, students can cut and glue pizza toppings onto a pizza slice.  Ask students what their favorite food is to eat.

Follow up Activity:  Ask students when they are in the mood for food?  Teach students about meal times like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Have a felt chart (or something similar) with three columns labeled breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  With felt foods, have students place the foods in the meal time that they would like to eat it. 

The Clean Platter by Ogden Nash

Bring salad or sausage or scone,

A berry or even a beat,

Bring an oyster, an egg, or a bone,

As long as it’s something to eat.

If its food,

Its food;

Nevermind what kind of food.

Through thick and through thin

I am constantly in

The mood

For food.

JUMP BALL: A BASKETBALL SEASON IN POEMS by Mel Glenn



Photo located on www.authors4teens.com



Glenn, Mel. 1997. JUMP BALL: A BASKETBALL SEASON IN POEMS. New York: Lodestar. ISBN 052567554X

Review

A high school basketball season is experienced through the personal poems of the members of the basketball team as well as other key members to the story.  Competition, dating, pregnancy, and tragedy are explored throughout the pages.  We read about Garrett James, a player looking to go pro, and his love of the game and his dislike for the media’s questions.  Author Mel Glenn uses the poetry to convey attitudes of the characters.  We feel like James is somewhat quiet and prefers to do his talking on the court.  Mary Beth Hoskins’ poems reveals her tolerance for having a husband as a dedicated basketball coach but we also sense her loneliness as we read, “I often eat, sleep, and live alone.”  The poems give you glimpses into the accident that occurs at the end of the book and readers will be anticipating the outcome. 

Jump Ball is an abstract play on emotions.  The reader will connect with the lives and feelings of the characters and will develop their own hopes of what happens to them.  Readers will also connect with the cultural language that is used with words such as, “ain’t doin’ nothin’,” “outta here,” and “I ain’t no ball player, you is.”   Differentiated poem sounds and structure are used to keep readers interested.  For example, poems with same word endings like “zone” and “zone” in Garrett James (below) and slant rhyme poems like Dennis Carleton can spark interest among users with words that don’t rhyme but are similar like “enough” and “but” or “son” and “was.”  In addition, the Basketball Pulse poems are concrete poems which also appeal to young readers. 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Have students share with a partner a time when they got to do their favorite hobby and it was a good time/moment. 

Follow up Activity:  Have students notice the middle of the poem where the author uses the same word at the end of the sentences.  Have students create a poem of their own using their hobby as a topic and having the same ending in a part of the poem. 

Garrett James

I’ve played in tournaments ‘round the country.

I’ve gone coast-to-coast,

From one baseline to another,

From one ocean to another.

I’ve flown over more time zones

Than u can remember.

But there is only one zone that counts,

Not the parking zone,

              hospital zone,

             loading zone,

             commercial zone,

Not the combat zone,

red zone,

end zone,

neutral zone.

When I am in THE ZONE,

Every pass connects; every shot clicks.

I can’t hear the crowd or the coach.

I am alone, alive, above the rim, above the arena,

Playin’ in a zone for which there is no defense.

Nobody can ever hurt me up there.

I am untouchable.

HERE IN HARLEM: POEMS IN MANY VOICES by Walter Dean Myers



Author Walter Dean Myers
Photo Credit: Malin Fezehai

Myers, Walter Dean. 2004. HERE IN HARLEM: POEMS IN MANY VOICES. New York: Holiday House. ISBN 1430108827

Review

The story of Harlem is told through the eyes of both young and old African Americans.  The poems include tales of the unemployed, musicians, hair dressers, laborers, and the retired.  Included are slightly humorous poems like Hairdresser and Clerk as well as somber poems like Veteran. Veteran is a poem of a soldier returning from war with his head held high; pride and patriotism overflowing.  Upon return to America, he is reminded of his place as the second-class black man.  The highs and lows of Clara Brown, a dancer, are told through multiple parts throughout the book. In Part VI, she reminds the community, “Harlem has been worse off, and it’s been better. It’s had its big-time people and its struggling folk.  If it got to be one thing to everybody, either we wouldn’t be black or it wouldn’t be Harlem. Now, would it?” 

Myers poems utilize sense imagery more than anything.  In Alto Sax Player you can hear the music with his use of onomatopoeia.  Words like “be-bop” and “be- bop bo dee” bring to life the jazz music and you can almost picture the be-bopping and scatting of the singers and audience.  In Nanny, the character explains the “aching” of her joints and exhaustion “down to the bone.”  The tone of Myers is of appreciation and love for Harlem.  You feel like he has experienced the joy and pain in the hardships.  The poetry expresses different moods such as fun, joyful, regretful, somber, tired, and frustrated.  The following poem, Clara Brown’s Testimony, Part II, evokes pride and delight which quickly change to sadness and disappointment. 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  Ask students if they have ever been refused something because of a personal characteristic like race, height, gender, and so forth.  Allow some of them to share their stories.  If students cannot think of a situation, ask them if they have ever known someone else in that situation.  For younger students, ask them to express what it feels like to not get what they want.

Follow up Activity:  Have a copy of each poem from the book and have students choose a poem.  On paper, have them illustrate that poem.  Then later, the illustrations can be put together to make a class book of these poems with pictures. 

Clara Brown’s Testimony

Part II

The first time my heart was broken, it was by the

Cotton Club.  I was too young and full of myself

for no boy to hurt me.  Me and my sister, Vicky,

heard they were having tryouts for the chorus

line. We could both dance, and we practiced

our little routine until it was right. We called

ourselves the Queen Sisters. I don’t know why –

we just thought it fit us.

When it time for us to show our stuff, we

did it with style!  You hear me?  I knew we were

good when we walked in the door.  The woman

picking the dancers said she would let us know,

and I made sure she had our right address. 

We changed into our street clothes and was

just about ready to leave when the piano player

stopped us.  “I’m sorry, girls.  You were good,” he

said. “But they only hire light-skinned girls to

dance here.”

I couldn’t tell you what that man looked

like today.  You ever try to look at somebody with

 tears in your eyes and your lip quivering so bad

you can’t talk?  That was the day I learned that

being black wasn’t no simple thing, even in Harlem.

Purpose of this Blog

Please note that this blog has been created for the purpose of an educational course through Texas Woman's University. 

Previous and New Posts

Previous Posts for Literature for Children and Young Adults.  New Posts are solely Poetry.