In honor of PaperTigers’ 10th Anniversary, Cathy Mealey (who blogs at Bildebok), sent us a photo of lovely tiger drawn by her 9 year old daughter Grace. Grace’s “Carrotiger” was inspired by her love of children’s poet laurerate Jack Prelutsky’s book Scranimals, illustrated by Peter Sis (Greenwillow Books, 2006).
We’re sailing to
Scranimal Island,
It doesn’t appear on
most maps….
Scranimal Island
is where you will find
the fragrant RHINOCEROSE,
the cunning BROCCOLIONS.
And if you are really, really lucky
and very, very quiet,
you will spot
the gentle, shy PANDAFFODIL.
(You may even hear it yawning
If the morning’s just begun,
Watch its petals slowly open
To embrace the rising sun.
Thank you so much for your lovely drawing Grace! With this submission, Grace and her mom Cathy are entered in our 10th Anniversary give-away. The closing date for entries is midnight PST on Saturday Nov 10th with winners being announced here on the blog on Monday Nov 19th. There are 10 fabulous prizes to be won so don’t delay, get your entry in too. Click here for all the details!
Poetry Foundation Press Release:
May 12th, CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce that poet J. Patrick Lewis will serve as the nation’s third Children’s Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children’s Poetry to the Poetry Foundation for a two-year tenure. The award, which includes a $25,000 cash prize, aims to raise awareness that children have a natural receptivity 
to poetry and are its most appreciative audience, especially when poems are written specifically for them.
“Pat’s many books bring great joy to young readers—the future of poetry,” said Poetry Foundation president John Barr. “He has profuse gifts as a poet—with wordplay, humor, and technical facility—and truly loves writing for and to children. To say that in children’s poetry Pat has found his calling is no mean thing because he has excelled in so many other walks of life: scholar, economist, and author. What Pat Lewis brings to the office of Children’s Poet Laureate is a life fully lived and, of course, tremendous joy for his craft and audience.”
The author of more than 50 books of poetry for children, Lewis began his career as an academic; he taught in the departments of business, accounting, and economics at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, until 1998, when he left to devote himself to writing full time. His books for children include Spot the Plot: A Riddle Book of Book Riddles; The Last Resort; The Shoe Tree of Chagrin; and A Hippopotamusn’t: And Other Animal Poems. His children’s poetry has appeared in Highlights for Children, Cricket, and Ranger Rick, among many other places, and his writing has been widely anthologized. His contributions to children’s literature have been recognized with the 2011 Poetry Award from the National Council of Teachers of English and the Ohioana Awards’ 2004 Alice Louise Wood Memorial Prize. His first book of poetry for adults, Gulls Hold Up the Sky: Poems 1983–2010, was published in 2010. A father of three and grandfather of five, he visits more than 30 elementary schools a year, keynotes at literature conferences, and presents teachers’ workshops on introducing poetry in the classroom.
Findings from the Poetry Foundation’s seminal research study, Poetry in America, demonstrate that a lifelong love for poetry is most likely to result if cultivated early in childhood and reinforced thereafter. During his laureateship, Lewis will give two major public readings for children and their families, teachers, and librarians. He will also serve as an advisor to the Poetry Foundation on children’s literature and may engage in a variety of projects and events to help instill a love of poetry among the nation’s youngest readers. The Poetry Foundation made the appointment with input from a panel of experts in the field of children’s literature.
**This week’s Poet
As Jack Prelutsky passes the mantle of Children’s Poet Laureate to Mary Ann Hoberman, it’s a good time to take a quick look at some of his new poetry out this year:
My Dog May Be a Genius (Greenwillow)
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry; How to Write a Poem (Greenwillow)
Billed as a collection of “more than 100 silly poems,” My Dog May Be a Genius is Prelutsky’s fifth collection of humorous poems in the vein of The New Kid on the Block, his best-selling collection of 100+ poems illustrated by cartoonist James Stevenson with understated comic genius on every page. With poems that are nearly childhood standards now, like “Homework! Oh, Homework!” and “Bleezer’s Ice Cream,” the music of Prelutsky’s verse is irresistible and continues in My Dog May Be A Genius with “bookend” poems such as “Homework, Sweet Homework” and “Sandwich Stan.”
Since the publication of New Kid, equally popular companion books followed, including Something Big Has Been Here (1990), A Pizza the Size of the Sun (1996), and It’s Raining Pigs & Noodles (2000). My Dog May Be a Genius is a fitting successor to this comic legacy and includes concrete poems, puns, and even two poems about reading and the library (and you know how I love those!). [Indices to titles and to first lines are also included.] Here’s one sample poem that I think kids will love. What about putting it on a valentine next February?
If You Were a Rhinoceros
by Jack Prelutsky
If you were a rhinoceros,
I still would be your friend.
And if you were a platypus,
our friendship would not end.
I’d like you as a walrus,
camel, cat, or kangaroo.
It doesn’t matter what you are—
I’ll still be friends with you.
From: Prelutsky, Jack. 2008. My Dog May Be a Genius. New York: Greenwillow, p. 42.
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry; How to Write a Poem is Prelutsky’s offering to young, aspiring poets out there and to readers of all ages who might be interested in the back story behind many of his popular poems and his poetry writing process. This reader-friendly volume (targeting ages 7-10) consists of about 20 autobiographical anecdotes, 20 stand-alone writing tips, connected with poems referenced in both. Each is written in his inimitable, humorous style incorporating his personal experiences as well as responses from kids over the years. He also introduces poetry terms and concepts such as voice, scansion, meter, etc. with helpful sidebars. Most of the poems trade on his humorous rhyming verse, but he includes haiku and concrete poems, too.
The book ends with 10 “Poemstarts” that offer kids a formula for building poems based on patterns. A glossary and index are additional tools included. Teachers will appreciate Prelutsky’s emphasis on keeping a poetry notebook (or journal) and on the need for constant rewriting. Librarians will appreciate his sending young readers to the library for the thesaurus and other tools. One note for parents: Prelutsky offers a smorgasbord of food pranks (and others) that he and his brother pull on their parents. It’s hilarious, but… :-) This is an excellent addition to books on poetry writing for young kids, particularly since it helps us get in the head of a poet, so to speak.
Here’s one tiny excerpt from his first essay, “My Father’s Underwear” which ends,
“One of the things that I did to make my father so mad at me was to pin his underwear up on the wall. Before I did that, though, I decorated it. You see, my father wore really boring white underwear, and I wanted to make it pretty, so I painted it with finger paint. THEN I pinned it to the wall. My father didn’t like that at all.
Once I put a bug in his coffee cup, and another time I put breadcrumbs in his bed. I did lots of other stuff too. I made a list of all the things like that I could remember, then picked some of them to put in a poem called “I Wonder Why Dad Is So Thoroughly Mad.”
From: Prelutsky, Jack. 2008. Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry; How to Write a Poem. New York: Greenwillow, p. 3-4.
For more on Prelutsky, look for my birthday posting about him and his work on September 8, 2007, or my entry for him in POETRY PEOPLE; A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CHILDREN'S POETS (Libraries Unlimited, 2007).
For more Poetry Friday treats, go to my fabulous former student's blog: Becky's Book Reviews.
Picture credits: cdn.harpercollins.com
