Publications about books for children and young adults
The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems about the Presidents by Susan Katz; illus. by Robert Neubecker Primary, Intermediate Clarion 64 pp. 2/12 978-0-547-18221-6 $17.99 In forty-three poems, Katz gives each of our U.S. presidents their due. She concentrates on little-known facts (William McKinley taught his parrot “Yankee Doodle”) but often slips in sly political [...]
In honor of National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day, we’ve put together a booklist of verse narratives across audience age and genre. Want a historical fiction verse novel or a picture book in poems? Look no further. These books were all published in the last few years and recommended by The Horn [...]
The books recommended below were published within the last several years. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion. PICTURE BOOKS Suggested grade level for all entries: K-3 The Great Migration: Journey to the North written by Eloise Greenfield; illus. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist (HarperCollins/Amistad) Poignant poems (accompanied by collage [...]
A Field Sing-A-Long (Dowa-ya) is a collection of short free-verse poems translated by William I. Elliott and Nishihara Katsumasa from Naoko Kudō’s Japanese originals. Naoko’s poems are set in a natural community called “Field Village.” Various creatures or elements of the habitat—personified with human names such as “Yoshio Rivercrab” and “Futago Rabbit”—act as “poets,” offering [...]
Every Thing on It by Shel Silverstein; illus. by the author Primary, Intermediate | Harper/HarperCollins | 202 pp. 9/11 | 978-0-06-199816-4 | $19.99 | Library ed. 978-0-06-199817-1 | $20.89 Posthumously published works are sometimes weak, but this collection of 140-plus poems is every bit as good as Silverstein’s earlier poetry collections, beginning with the now-classic Where the Sidewalk [...]
Today J. Patrick Lewis was named the national Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He’s the third to hold the two-year post, following Jack Prelutsky and Mary Ann Hoberman. In his article “On Originality in Children’s Poetry” in the May 2005 Magazine, Lewis referenced T.S. Eliot’s observation that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; [...]
Chronicle has just published His Shoes Were Far Too Tight, a collection of Edward Lear’s poems, selected and introduced by author/NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater. The collection is illustrated by Calef Brown, a fabulous children’s poet himself. With the book we received a CD of the euphonious Pinkwater narrating five of the poems. My favorite is [...]
As Roger reports, PoetryTagTime is a new ebook-only anthology of 30 original, interrelated poems. Each distinguished children’s poet “tags” the next poet in line, connecting each poem topically (moon to sun, sun to sunflower, etc.) to the ones before and after it. The PoetryTagTime Tips blog offers ideas for sharing the poems with kids one-on-one [...]
>TWU professor Sylvia Vardell and poet Janet Wong have collaborated to bring us PoetryTagTime, an ebook compilation of new poems for children. With Joyce Sidman, X.J Kennedy, and Jane Yolen among the thirty poets included, the organizing principle of the book is neat, with each poet “tagging” the next to write a poem which in [...]
Amulet/Abrams’ Laura Mihalick gave me a neat book at Midwinter: Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets: 100 Poems to Rip Out & Read, compiled by Bruno Navasky, and due out this March. While the book has a sturdy hardcover, its apparent aim is to gradually self-destruct, as the poems within are printed on a [...]
