Poetry Friday: A Kick In The Head

It's so great to enthuse about a book, with absolutely no reservations at all. A Kick in the Head (2005), a volume of poems selected by Paul Janeczko and illustrated by Chris Raschka, is such a book. But this is not just a collection of charming and diverting poems by various skilled authors, charmingly and divertingly illustrated (although it is that). This book is "An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms." Examples of 29 different forms of verse are presented, with the poems in largish type and the explanation of the form in very small parent-reading-size type.

For example, here's a Riddle Poem:

The beginning of eternity
The end of time and space,
The beginning of every end,
The end of every place. (annon.)

And Janeczko notes: "A riddle poem indirectly describes a person, place, thing, or idea. The reader must try to figure out the subject of the riddle. A riddle poem can be any length and usually has a rhyme scheme of abcb or aabb" (page 33)

In the introduction, Janeczko says that "knowing the rules makes poetry - like sports - more fun." It's his hope that knowing the rules will make the "game" of poetry more fun.

I'm not the first to fall for this book. It's won awards, gotten glowing awards, etc. etc. Deservedly so. This book is certainly educational--it's the best guide to poetic forms I've ever read (I can't actually remember reading any others, but there you go). I had never, for instance, heard of a senryu before (a haiku about human nature). But it is also simply a fun book to read to your kids, hoping, perhaps, that they will want to play too.

A Kick in the Head is recommended for children 9-12, but heck. Everyone likes to read fun poetry, and figuring out (and bending) the Rules makes poetry even more engaging.

The poetry friday roundup is at The Miss Rumpheus Effect today!

Book Lovers -- Unite To Bring Back Surface Mail!

As you may or may not know, the US Postal Service no longer offers international surface mail. This means that it is no longer practical to send anything heavy (like books) overseas-- no sending books (or other humanitarian items like blankets and clothes) to developing countries, no international students being able to send their books home, no books as presents for friends and family overseas, and a hardship to folks selling books.

Please sign this petition, and pass it on!

thanks.

Spoilers! Rowling answers questions

JK Rowling has told what happens to the main characters --the full transcript of her recent session answering fan's questions is up on Mugglenet

I am pleased with Luna's future--she becomes a famous wizarding naturalist who eventually marries the grandson of Newt Scamander, author of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.'"

I couldn't see her ending up with Dean, despite their brief hand holding.

But Harry as Head of a Ministry Department seems a bit silly. He has no administrative talents at all, and should be a field worker. Although he is good (as the leader of the DA), at gathering people together to work for a common goal, so maybe it will work...

Linking to "Mythic Fiction for Young Adult Readers"

Following a link over at Chicken Spaghetti today, I found myself at the blog for the Endicott Studio, looking around with great interest. As well as the blog, there is an online Journal of Mythic Arts, the summer edition of which is now online. From the blog: this issue is "focused this time on mythic fiction for Young Adult readers. What's special about this issue is that it contains thirteen short stories, rather than our usual two or three, along with our regular mix of nonfiction, art, and poetry." Read more about it here (the blog) or go straight to the journal where you can read new stories by Holly Black, Gwenda Bond, and many others.

Since everyone is saying that Harry Potter has made fantasy the hot book genre for the young etc etc, I find it a little dispiriting that the lovingly selected cluster of such books displayed in advance of HP 7 at my library didn't get checked out in meaningful numbers (2 books is not meaningful, especially since I took one of them). However, ever the optimist I have changed the sign from "While you're waiting for Harry, check these out!" to "Now that you've read Harry..."

In fairness to the patrons of my library--they had already checked out many of the books I had planned to put in the display. The Dark is Rising seems to be going out like hot cakes; likewise the Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimo. But why will no one check out The Game (Diana Wynne Jones) or The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner) or The Safe Keeper's Secret (Sharon Shinn)?

What character from The Thief are you?

I just found out that I'm the Queen of Eddis...here's the quiz. If you haven't read The Thief and it's two sequels, by Megan Whalen Turner, you should. Especially if you are looking for Post Harry reading. I lovingly put these books out in my library's "while you're waiting for Harry" display...no one has checked them out. So I will change the sign to "now that you've read Harry" and leave the books there until they are gone. Or until Management forces me to reshelve them.

July 2007 Carnival of Children's Literature

The curtain's gone up on the July 2007 Carnival of Children's Literature --The Play's the Thing hosted by Saints and Spinners. It is a stunning collection of the cream of kid lit blog posts from the past month--check it out!

New Ballet Shoes movie on its way

A new movie is being made of Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild, due to start production in August. They are apparently having trouble casting it --here's an article explaining the difficulty. Ballet Shoes is one of the books from my childhood I read ad nauseam-- it's the tale of three sisters at a stage school in pre-WWII London. Along with White Boots (aka Skating Shoes) and Curtain's Up (aka Theatre Shoes), it's my favorite Streatfeild, so I hope they are kind to it. The BBC did a version in 1975 (shown at left), but I've never seen it.

When I lived in England a while ago, I was staggered to realize how many books she had written that are not readily available over here. Here's a full list of her books.

Wiggle and Waggle--the Play's the Thing

Last week I reviewed Wiggle and Waggle by Caroline Arnold, illustrated by Mary Peterson (2007, Charlesbridge, 48 pp, ages 4-8). In a nutshell, this is a picture book/early reader that tells of the simple doings/diggings of two worms (the eponymous Wiggle and Waggle), in 5 well-illustrated chapters. Here's the full review.

I have now read this book 16 times to my 4 year old. We have also stagged a Wiggle and Waggle puppet show.

Wiggle and Waggle makes a darn good puppet show for the very young. This occurred to me the first time I read it; I then found out that Charlesbridge had the same idea here at their Wiggle and Waggle activities page.

For one thing, it is very easy and fun to make worm puppets out of construction paper glued to popsicle sticks. Wiggle and Waggle are more "earth toned" than most new construction paper, but we have so many old old old pieces around that have faded that we were able to find colors that worked. But for those who want the real Wiggle and Waggle, not home-made approximations, Charlesbridge has cut-outable pictures.

There are only two characters, which cuts down on the chaos factor considerably. Wiggle and Waggle sing, and, speaking from experience, the Wiggle and Waggle song is easily memorized (there's a tune provided online, but I find it easier just to fit the words to whatever tune comes into my head). The plots of the Wiggle and Waggle stories are very simple (and plot takes a backseat to performance anyway, in a show like this. We did a lot of singing the Wiggle and Waggle song, less re-enactment of the story lines). And finally, after hearing the book over 20 times in a week (16 + however many times my husband has read it), there is a good chance that both child and adult will have memorized the dialogue (or you can just sing).

I am tempted to make more worms (so easy to do)--Squiggle and Squaggle (not in the book) can come over to play. I am also tempted to add zing to our show by making alternate W. and W.'s --Full Tummied version, for after the picnic, and Muddy version.

Or perhaps we can just go visit the compost pile, and find some worms to train for the live action version, and I can write about it as a submission to the Learning in the Great Outdoors blog carnival.

I'm submitting this one to The Play's the Thing, the July 2007 Carnival of Children's Literature, over at Saints and Spinners.

There's a Book Quiz going around, which I found at Becky's Book Reviews. I hate this cover. I don't mind being The Hobbit, but why do I have to be this hobbit?

You're The Hobbit!

by J.R.R. Tolkien

All you wanted was a nice cup of tea when some haggard crazy old man
came into your life and told you it was time to do something with yourself. Now you're
all conflicted about whether to stick with your stay-at-home lifestyle or follow this
crazy person into the wild. While you're very short and a little furry, you seem to be
surrounded by an even greater quantity of short folks lately. Try not to lose your ring,
but keep its value in perspective!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Or take the Country quiz. I am France. I don't know what to say about that. And no, the quiz didn't ask my opinion of George Bush.

Next I took the university quiz:

You're the University of California, Irvine!

Your surroundings have always been spoiled and privileged to
the point of being removed from reality. At the same time, you can be
surprisingly down-to-earth and aren't even above the consumption of insects.
Despite being quite young, you have established yourself as one of the better
researchers in your field. You love the strange phonetics of the word
"zot".


Take the University Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I don't actually think "zot" has strange phonetics.

Stranger in a Strange Land--American girls at English Schools

I stopped over at Shen's Blog this morning, and I predict that I might be visiting again many times in the next few weeks, to check in on their "Crossing Cultural Borders" series (logo on right). It looks great!

This week's topic is "Stranger in a Strange Land: Americans Traveling to Other Cultures:

Since it’s summer and the perfect time to travel, we’re kicking off our Crossing Cultural Borders series with stories about American children and teens physically crossing the borders into other countries and experiencing other cultures."

When I was a little girl, I found myself starting first grade at the Oporto British School. Standing outside the door of my new classroom, a strange adult pushed me in the direction of a larger child, saying, "You stand with her. She's American too." And bang, it hit me that I was "the other" and at an even more basic level that "others" existed (well, not quite in those words). I had never before thought of myself as "American" in opposition to anything else.

In English school stories, Americans at English schools have generally been caricatures. Zerelda Brass, for instance, shows up in Third Year at Mallory Towers (Enid Blyton, 1948, but still in print), wearing (brace yourself) Lipstick! She is flamboyant, annoys the English girls with her accent (which is totally unfair), and generally has trouble with the role of rule-abiding English school girl. For more on Zerelda, look here . Enid Blyton sure has no qualms about pigeonholing girls from different countries--Americans, although bumbtuous, are at least good-hearted, whereas the unfortunate French are doomed--no sense of honour. I started reading Enid Blyton while I was at the Oporto British School, and found Zerelda so fantastical as to be meaningless. But by that time I had picked up, without conscious effort, a more or less posh British accent myself, while still inwardly sneering at the pronunciations of certain words such as squirrel (which of course has only one syllable).

An outstanding book about an American girl at an English boarding school is Back Home, by Michelle Magorian (1984). Virgina was evacuated to America at the beginning of WW II; now the war is over, she returns to her family in England. 12 year old Rusty, as Virginia was called by her American family, isn't "English" anymore, and Magorian does a superb job showing all the jarring, dislocating little things that make two cultures different from each other, even when the language spoken looks the same on paper. For instance, the simple act of saying "hi," without waiting to be spoken too, raises the hackles of the English girls. Rusty's experience at boarding school is horrific. Used to the freedom of her life in America (which seems like a cliche, but reading American vs English girls stories indicates pretty clearly that there is a lot of truth in it), Rusty cannot cope with the regimented, rule-bound institution in which she is trapped.

More recently, Libby Koponen wrote Blow Out the Moon (2004), based on her own experiences of moving to England at a young age, and going off to boarding school at age 8. She too expresses very well how totally foreign a child can feel that first day of school. At the day school she went to initially, the fact of her American-ness never went away; hence her enrollment at what turned out to be an idyllic sounding boarding school. Libby Koponen has a great web site, with lots of pictures!

I've always felt that England should feel less foreign than it does--after all, we read a lot of the same children's books...But because of the shared culture and language, the little things that are different are more startling than the large differences encountered in places where differences are more expected.

If anyone has other examples of American girls at English schools, please share them!

For Poetry Friday- Talking like the Rain, and a long day without water

In preparation for Poetry Friday, I checked out an anthology of poems for children--Talking Like the Rain, a Read-to-me Book of Poems (selected by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy, illustrated by Jane Dyer, 1992, Little Brown). My six year old is a big fan of my blog, and I thought he might enjoy helping me pick this week's poem. We browsed through the anthology, dipping into poems almost at random. This book offers a mix of older authors (Christina Rosetti, RL Stevenson), and many 20th century poets of whom I know little, and includes a number of anonymous playground type songs, which is always fun. The water color illustrations are enjoyable without being intrusive.

So there we were, browsing, when I was startled to come across this poem, by Joan Aiken, called "John's Song."

It's a long walk in the dark
on the blind side of the moon
and it's a long day without water
when the river's gone
and it's hard listening to no voice
when you're all alone

so take a hundred lighted candles with you
when you walk on the moon
and quickly quickly tie a knot in the river
before the water's gone
and listen for my voice, if for no other
when you're all alone

"That was great." said my son, very seriously. I like it too.

I was surprised at this poem's appearance in this anthology because I knew it before, from Aiken's short story "A Long Day Without Water." It is a very sad story, and not being one to linger over sad bits, I never fully appreciated this song as a "poem." Checking my copy of the story (which appears in A Harp of Fishbones and Other Stories, 1972), I see to my even greater surprise that the second verse isn't in the story. Where did the missing verse come from?

The Kennedys say the poem is from Not What You Expected, another short story collection (1974), where the same story appears. Perhaps Aiken added the second verse then. Taking the question up with google, I found that she wrote quite a bit of poetry, so possibly I will be posting more from her on future Fridays.

Talking Like the Rain got its name from a quote taken from Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen, and printed at the beginning of the book:

One evening out in the maize field, where we had been harvesting maize, breaking off the cobs and throwing them on to the ox-carts, to amuse myself, I spoke to the field labourers, who were mostly quite young, in Swahili verse. There was no sense in the verse, it was made for the sake of the rhyme...
It caught the interest of the boys, they formed a ring around me. They...waited eagerly for the rhyme, and laughed at it when it came. I tried to make them themselves find the rhyme, and finish the poem when I had begun it, but they could not, or would not, do that, and turned away their heads. As they had become used to the idea of poetry, they begged: "Speak again. Speak like rain." Why they should feel verse to be like rain I do not know. It must have been, however, an expression of applause, since in Africa rain is always longed for and welcome."

I am longing for rain right now myself.

The Poetry Friday Round Up is at Chicken Spaghetti today!

Ralph Masiello's Dragon Drawing Book

Sadly, all the pictures I drew myself that went with this post vanished into the inter-ether. As I threw away my drawings and deleted them from my computer, there isn't much I can do about it.



I believe firmly that a few gentle tips can make a huge difference to a beginning artist. For instance, when I was little, my mother drew an endless succession of paper doll princesses for me to color, all with their arms stuck out at 45 degree angles. Being a good, docile child, I thought this was how the human form should be drawn until I was 14/15, when finally someone asked, "why do all your people have their arms sticking out at 45 degree angles?" It was incredibly liberating to move arms around. Likewise, when I was nine I was given "How to draw horses." Almost immediately, my horse's rear legs went from this to this. Definite progress, although more is needed-- my horses to this day are all standing still and looking left.

On occasion I draw dragons for my boys to color (strangely they don't want princess paper dolls). I have lots of stuffed models to copy, but I feel tremendously inadequate when I attempt the writhing, horn-festooned dragons of high fantasy. So I approached Ralph Masiello's Dragon Drawing Book (2007, Charlesbridge) in a hopeful spirit. (Masiello is also the illustrator of Jerry Pallotta's alphabet books, which are being requested incessantly these days at my house. Despite this, until I read the fly leaf I didn't have a clue who Masiello was. Other households must pay more attention to the names of illustrators...He has also done bug, dinosaur, and ocean drawing books, which makes sense, as each of these topics has its alphabet book).

The Dragon Drawing Book is lovely to look at. Masiello includes colorful finished dragons of his own, and very nice they are. I also liked the Useful Map showing where all the dragons he draws can be found--these are not just your common garden European dragon, but rather Dragons of Many Lands. I for one am greatful for every opportunity to promote geography and multi-cultural appreciation.

Masiello's approach is to go line by line, until suddenly you've drawn the lines and have the dragon. This is in marked contrast to the "find the geometric shapes" approach I've seen in other drawing books, where you block the figure out and then add detail and erase. Presumably the user of this book could sketch the basic shape on their own, and then add the clear lines Masiello suggests. In my "after" picture, I didn't do this, but perhaps should have.

Even though my kids are too young to do the drawings as outlined, they liked leafing through the book, and perhaps it will inspire them. My six year old ranks himself 3rd in his class at Dragon Drawing, and, not that I'm competitive on my children's behalf or anything, tied for best would also be nice. Especially since only three of them draw dragons.

Here is my Before picture:
This is "Raineater." He looks like a stuffed animal because he is.

Here is my After picture, drawn quite quickly in pen with no erasing:

I ran into two specific problems. For each drawing, Masiello provides lines to copy. In the beginning, it is not at all clear what the line is supposed to be, and so what seems like a small difference between your version and his can end up being more problematic than it might seem. That's why my tail is so scrawny--I thought it was ok to end it early, not realizing it was supposed to continue. I should have studied the final product, sketched it a bit, gotten some idea of what I was trying to draw.

My other problem is that I am really bad at repeating abstract patterns, which is why the scaly part down the tummy gets pretty out of focus on mine, and which is also why I chose not to include scales. However, I think, if I practiced, I could draw pretty good copies of his dragons, and then I would have a repertoire of 11 cool dragons.

Would I, at that point, be a better "dragon draw-er?" I think yes--I already feel a bit more ready to tackle wing structure. A book like this is perhaps the drawing equivalent of learning to dance by standing on someone else's feet--by copying their steps/lines, you get a feel for how things should go.

Charlesbridge is holding a really cool dragon drawing competition in honor of this book --see here; sadly, I'm too old.

NB: I received my copy of this book from the publisher.

Wiggle and Waggle

Wiggle and Waggle by Caroline Arnold, illustrated by Mary Peterson (2007, Charlesbridge, 48 pp, ages 4-8)

Wiggle and Waggle tells of the simple doings/diggings of two worms (the eponymous Wiggle and Waggle), in 5 well-illustrated chapters. This book works very well both as a read-aloud and as an early reader. I tried it on my children (4 and 6) last night as both, with great success. Of course, its worth as an early reader was perhaps compromised by the fact that I had to read it out loud three times at the request of the 4 year old before the 6 year old got a chance to try.

The doings of the worms are simple--they work in the garden (dig dig dig), go on a picnic, go swimming, and dig some more. As an adult forced to re-read ad nausem, I would have liked a bit more--the worms are not as well characterized as Frog and Toad, for example, and their adventures not as compelling. But according to my children, this book was just as good if not better.

Caroline Arnold has written more than 130 children's books, mainly non-fiction, so it's not surprising that this book also includes an information page about worms at the end. I appreciated this, although I am not sure that my life is better for knowing that there are earthworms that grow to be 22 feet long. That's too long.

The illustrations are simple, with touches of whimsical detail -- after eating their picnic, for instance, the worms have round little tummies, which delighted my youngest. It is a tricky thing, I imagine, to illustrate an early reader--one doesn't want illustrations that distract too much from the text, but they still should be interesting. I think Peterson does a fine job striking that balance. The book itself is very handsome. Even thought the words themselves are simple, and the chapters short, the hardcover edition I have looks much more like a Real Book than most early readers, which is all to the good.

I am doing my best to ensure that my children like worms. We go to the compost pile to look for "wormies" -- "Oh wormy-squirmy! wormy-squirmy! how sweet!" says 4 year old; but sadly, my 6 year old has been affected by peer pressure, and has been known to say "gross." So I was glad to bring home this pro-worm book (joining the ranks of Diary of A Worm, and Richard Scarry's books about Lowly).*

"This book should be called Cute Wormies," said my 4 year old, a pretty good summation of this charming, but not particularly deep (dig related pun) book.

From Arnold's website, here's the story of how Wiggle and Waggle came to be written, here's a link to an activities page, and finally, here's a link to a Wiggle and Waggle YouTube video.

*Lowly Worm is still my favorite fictional worm, even though I didn't get the pun until I was about 25. Sigh.

NB: I was given my copy by the publisher.

Reading YA and (oh the shame of it) J books as an adult

I was recently interviewed by my town's newspaper for an article about the Friends of the Library. As I had expected, I was asked what I myself read, and even though I am Not Ashamed of reading below my age, it still made me squirm a bit to confess (as if it were a guilty secret) that I get my books out of the children's and ya sections. I am not, however, alone--witness this recent article in the Chicago Tribune. There's also an interesting discussion about this going on at a blog I just found -- Dear Author. (There are also a lot of Sharon Shinn posts, including a lengthy interview that I hope to go back and find the time to read. I am very fond of Sharon Shinn's trilogy that began with Safe Keeper's Secret--I bought them for the library and no one has read them! Wah!)

For fans of Rosemary Sutcliff & books about King Arthur

Rosemary Sutcliff is my favorite writer of historical fiction; her books about Roman Britain are unparalleled.* However, I never read Sword at Sunset, one of her few "adult" books, mainly because it wasn't in my part of the library with her other books. The other reason is that it is about King Arthur, and about the same time I was devouring Sutcliff, I was also devouring Mary Stewart's Arthur books (The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills, the other two not yet having been published). Stewart's version of Arthur seemed so right to me that I wasn't able to stomach the thought of any other, and to this day I avoid Arthur books.

However, today I stumbled upon this interview with Sutcliff from 1986, and I may well go out looking for Sword at Sunset. The interview was one of a series by Raymond H. Thompson, gathered together as TALIESIN'S SUCCESSORS: INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHORS OF MODERN ARTHURIAN LITERATURE. Check out the table of contents: lots of good stuff besides Sutcliff.

*I've now given her a label of her very own...

JK Rowlings on BBC last friday --More Death!!!

From a friend in England (perhaps old news but new to me):

JKR was on a BBC chat show on Friday and she said that while finishing the book, she killed off two characters who hadn't originally been slated to die. But she made it clear that they weren't the ONLY two characters who die: 'It's a bloodbath.' she said firmly 'well, not a bloodbath, but more than two die.'

So at least three. But please, not Luna.

Ludo and the Star Horse, by Mary Stewart

There are some books that I have been putting off reading out loud to my children, because I am scared they won't like them and will never try to read them again. It's a delicate balance, because of course one wants to read them good books; just not the really beloved books from one's own childhood. Not quite yet.

One such book that I'm not reading out loud is Ludo and the Star Horse, by Mary Stewart, illustrated by Gino D'Achille (1974, reprinted in 2001). One snowy winter night in Bavaria, around 150 years ago, a young peasant boy named Ludo is left at home by his parents to look after the animals while they go down into the valley. He hears the stable door bang, and running to look, sees Renti, the old work horse, disappearing into the blizzard. Following after, Ludo finds himself falling through the snow into a cave that is the beginning of a magical journey through the signs of the zodiac.

The cave is the home of the Archer, Sagittarius. He tells Ludo that old Renti had deliberately left the stable, to seek the chariot of the sun and become a star horse. Before the sun passes through the 12 Houses of the Zodiac, Renti must catch up with it, or fail. Ludo, keeping faith with his old friend, sets off. Each House has its own guardian, not all of whom are friendly. Sneered at by Capricorn, helped by Aquarius, almost eaten by Pisces, Ludo and Renti press on, until at last they come to the house of the Scorpion. With the deadly tail of the Scorpion hanging over his head, and the Sun's chariot about to depart, Ludo must make a final choice for himself and his beloved horse.

A written description of the plot doesn't do justice the beauty of the book. This is the type of story that will make pictures in your mind that will last forever (as well as being illustrated with very engaging pictures of its own). It is also a book about growing up, and learning to trust yourself. At the book's beginning, Ludo is pretty sure he doesn't amount to much; by the end, he knows his own worth, and the value of having a dream.

A caveat: some people I know don't like this book because of its negative portrayal of their own sign of the zodiac. Gemini (twin bullying thugs), Cancer (murderous), and Pisces (also murderous) come off the worst, so be warned. But even though Capricorn is not entirely admirable, I still love this book!

A World of Wonders by J. Patrick Lewis

A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme by J. Patrick Lewis,illustrated by Alison Jay (2002, 40 pages, ages 4-8)

"Travel by boat or by car or by plane
To visit East Africa, Singapore, Spain.
Go by yourself or invite a good friend,
But traveling by poem is what I recommend!"

And indeed these poems take the reader around the world, exploring far off places and the people that explored them, offering helpful mnemonics (I especially appreciated the one about latitude and longitude -- "lines of latitude have a flatitude" and geographical readers.

I really wanted to love this book. It is absolutely lovely to look at--Jay's illustrations, in antique mappy tones, with the crazing of old oil paintings, are things of beauty. The educational content is great. But sadly, the poems themselves didn't quite sing for me; the majority felt rather forced.

One of the more engaging poems was Knockabout and Knockaboom, which the author tells us is set in the Mohave Desert, Southwestern United States (and I did like this sort of informative detail very much). Here's the first verse:

"The wind that whistles desert songs
By spinning tops of sand
Leaves behind a silent sea
Of dune-upon-dune land."

For what it's worth, my six year old said he liked all the poems. And probably this book will appeal greatly to all kids who consider themselves "sciency."

The Poetry Friday round up is at the Farm School today!

Welcome to Zanzibar Road, by Niki Daly

Welcome to Zanzibar Road, by Niki Daly. Clarion Books, 2006.

"One hot day in Africa, Mama Jumbo was walking down Zanzibar Road. "What a nice place to live," she thought." So begins Niki Daly's utterly charming tale of an elephant who settles down on a bright and bustling African street, builds a house, and adopts a young chicken (which sounds strange, but is rather sweet). The five chapters take Mama Jumbo from her entry into town to a happy ending of family and community.

When Mama Jumbo starts to build her house, all the neighbors come to help. The house was soon built, and a number sign (Seven Up) was found for it. But Mama Jumbo was lonely. She visits all the neighbors, a colorful group of African animals, looking for a house mate, but to no avail. Then she sees little Chico, a chicken, who "looked and smelled as if he needed someone to look after him." Soon Chico is clean and snuggled and loved. Chapter Three--"Where's Little Chico?" is the most amusing. When Mama Jumbo wakes up, she can't find Chico! The observant child will find him immediately--on Mama's head! Mama visits all the neighbors, giving us a tour of town--the grocery store, the bookmobile, Baba Jive the crocodile's music club--but no Little Chico! "Just wait until I find him," says Mama. "I'll pull his tail for making me worry so." But when Juju the Monkey tells Mama Chico's up on her head, she is so happy that instead of pulling his tail, she hugs him tight (been there, done that). In Chapter Four, "A Shadow on the Wall" (which, if this were a Victorian girl's book, would suggest that Little Chico were about to get TB, but of course it's not), a new cactus casts a monstrous shadow. Little Chico is scared, but Mama puts her hat on it, so now the shadow looks like her, and all is well. And finally the book concludes with a birthday party for Chico, and all the friends from Zanzibar road come to the party.

This is a marvelous book. It is marvelous at a surface level--fun story, fun pictures. At a deeper level, it gives children a wonderful picture of what it means to be a happy family and part of a community, even if you aren't born part of one. And on a final level, I really liked this book for its portrayal of an African community, a portrayal at once realistic and idealized. Finally, on a completely practical level, this is a great "easy reader" -- perhaps a quarter step up from Frog and Toad.

Poetry Friday: Three Books of Space Poems for Children

I recently won a copy of Douglas Florian's new book Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings (thanks Anne at Book Buds!). Like all the Florian books I've read, the poems are fun, the colors bright, and the book is enjoyable.

Another book of space poems for the same age group is Blast Off: Poems About Space (I Can Read). Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Melissa Sweet (1995), this is a collection of poems by various authors. The School Library Journal, in their review of this book at Amazon, is rather dismissive of the poems. But heck. Kids (I find, based on a sample size of 1) get such a charge out of POETRY, and being able to read it themselves. My sample also likes things that come in short bites, so poems work well. So what if, in a book like this, the rhymes are obvious. At least the rhymes here actually all work, and aren't forced annoyances, as they are in some more critically claimed children's poetry books. (Same goes for Florian's poems--they work well as early readers, with some help, and he knows how to rhyme).

Anyway, here's my favorite poem (which is vocabulary-wise perhaps the hardest in the book):

Blast Off! by Joanne Oppenheim

Wheelless
wingless
weightless
unknown roads in space await us.

All the poems in this book are available on line at this site

For older kids/grownups, a very funny book of space poems is The Space Child's Mother Goose, by Frederick Winson, illustrated by Marian Perry (1956, reprinted 2001). My mother handed it to me when I was 11 or so; I was much amused, and it educated me--this poem, for instance, added "postulate" to my vocabulary:

Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to Postulate How.

Which seems, according to google, to have stuck in the heads of many other folks as well! (My mother, incidentally, continues to be a proselytizer for this book. A few years ago she met husband and wife physicists Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge and ended up sending them a copy, which they greatly enjoyed).

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Shaken & Stirred today! Enjoy!