3 books of poem I read at home

Today I'm posting some bibliographies on books of poetry.

1.       Sidman, J.(2010) Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Dark Emperor is unique in that it is both nonfiction and poetry.  It tells a tale of a forest at night, starting with sunset and ending with sunrise.  It tells of many creatures, plants and even the moon itself.  Accompanying each poem there is a section of text on the opposite page giving the facts in plain matter.  This enables the reader to better understand the poem.  The artwork does well in describing the subject of the poem, as well as telling its own little story.  A little newt can be seen crawling through each page, ending eventually in his own poem about traveling. 

        This book can be a good way to get kids introduced into nonfiction reading if they like poetry and vice versa.  The child who doesn’t yet appreciate poetry might take another look at it after reading this story.  Sidman utilizes multiple poetry writing styles.  Some poems rhyme, while others don’t.  She uses different rhythms, and shapes the text differently between poems.  This being the case, it can also be a good book to introduce different poetry styles.

Prelutsky, J. (1983) Zoo Doings. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books

Jack Prelutsky creates a collection of poems all about animals.  There are poems about all kinds of animals and all of them are very clever. You can’t help but laugh at poems like “Don’t ever seize a weasel by the tail” and “The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese.”

                This book can be a kid favorite (I know it was mine) because the types of poems and the subject matter.  It’s all about animals, which most kids like to read about, and the poems tend to be funny.  They also use alliteration, and repeating words and sounds to make reading them a treat.  Many of the poems are best enjoyed when read out loud.

Stevenson, J. (1995) Sweet Corn. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books

This collection of poetry by James Stevenson features many topics familiar to children.  Food, animals, tree houses, and household objects all make appearances in this book.

                Stevenson mostly uses a freeform style of writing, though there is one or two rhyming poems in the collection.  The illustrations help give context to some of the more obscurely worded poems.   The words themselves are often placed in a certain way, or use different font types and sizes to give the poems more effect.