August 1 - 7, 2011
Book 1: A kick in the head: an everyday guide to poetic forms by Paul Janeczko
Bibliography:
Janeczko, P. (2005). A Kick in the head: an everyday guide to poetic forms. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Summary:
This book has twenty-nine poetic forms demonstrated for the reader. Each type of poem has an explanatory note on the page to tell about that share the description of that particular poem type. There are excellent color pictures that coincide with the theme of the each poem.
My Impression:
I enjoyed this book so much, that I actually purchased a copy to have for the classroom. The short poems and the description of each poem type make for an excellent reference or beginner guide to poetry. I would highly recommend this book for all classrooms. The pictures will pull in the readers and engross them in the poems on each page.
Reviews:
1. Publishers Weekly
(*) Janeczko and Raschka, on the heels of A Poke in the I, explain and sometimes bend the rules of 29 poetic forms, taking their title from a concrete poem of a stick figure punting a ball ("poetry jumpstarts my imagination.... poetry gives me a kick in the head"). By way of introduction, Janeczko asks, "Why 17 syllables in a haiku?," then points out the pleasurable rigors of poetic exercise: "Can you do a good job within these limits?" The pages demonstrate compact forms like the couplet, tercet and quatrain, and proceed to the more complex roundel, triolet, villanelle (basically "five tercets followed by a quatrain") and pantoum (a set of quatrains where, in the final stanza, "lines 2 and 4 repeat lines 3 and 1 of the opening stanza. Whew!"). Janeczko emphasizes play, and gives definitions in unintimidating, perhaps too tiny gray print; his approachable examples range from an Edward Lear limerick and Shakespeare's 12th sonnet to an "Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes" by Gary Soto and a comic epitaph by J. Patrick Lewis. Raschka marks each form with a witty icon: stacked rows of tulips (haiku, tanka), a bouncing ball (limerick), an urn (ode), a guitar (ballad). His multimedia collages feature fibrous, fuzzy-edged origami paper on a clean white ground; his sensuous brushwork alludes to Zen calligraphy, while his poppy reds, jade greens and brilliant yellows recall kimono designs or Matisse's tropical palette. Janeczko's disciplined but accessible examples, plus Raschka's spirited Asian-inspired images, add oomph to this joyful poetry lesson, sure to be welcomed by teachers and aspiring poets everywhere. Ages 8-11. (Apr.)
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2. Booklist
The creators of A Poke in the I (2001) offer another winning, picture-book poetry collaboration. Here, each poem represents a different poetic form, from the familiar to the more obscure. The excellent selection easily mixes works by Shakespeare and William Blake with entries from contemporary poets for youth, including Janeczko. Once again, Raschka's high-spirited, spare torn-paper-and-paint collages ingeniously broaden the poem's wide range emotional tones. A playful, animal shaped quilt of patterned paper illustrates Ogden Nash's silly couplet "The Mule," while an elegant flurry of torn paper pieces makes a powerful accompaniment to Georgia Heard's heartbreaking poem, "The Paper Trail," about lives lost on 9/11. Clear, very brief explanations of poetic forms (in puzzling tiny print) accompany each entry; a fine introduction and appended notes offer further information, as do Raschka's whimsical visual clues, such as the rows of tulips representing the syllables in a haiku. Look elsewhere for lengthy explanations of meter and rhyme. This is the introduction that will ignite enthusiasm. The airy spaces between the words and images will invite readers to find their own responses to the poems and encourage their interest in the underlying rules, which, Janeczko says "makes poetry - like sports - more fun". - Gillian Engberg
Suggestion for Use:
This book would be an excellent discussion book on types of poetry and would also work great for demonstrating on a screen from a document camera so the students can see the illustrations along with the shapes of the words for each of the different poems. Since this book shows that poetry can be fun, it would be an excellent started for particular types of poems to show an example and then have students try to create their own.
Citations:
A kick in the head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms. (2005). Publishers Weekly, 252(11), 67. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2104/ehost/detail?sid=4bd0d626-d5bc-4e5e-821d-8aa96a0b2217%40sessionmgr110&vid=141&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=lih&AN=16400513
Engberg, G. (2005). [Review of the book A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by P. Janeczko]. Booklist, 101(14), 1291. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:
2104/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5839463e-1cfd-4182-b0e7-71404461a7bd%40
sessionmgr114&vid=355&hid=107
Book 2: Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales by Deborah Noyles
Bibliography:
Rawlins, S. (2004). Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Summary:
This book has ten stories, each written by different authors who are very well known. The stories are fun, chilling, unnerving, ghost stories and mystery tales. Some of the stories take place in the past while some are from current times. This collection takes some of the old stereotypes from horror and provides some creative twists on the characters. Some will scare you enough to keep you awake for a few nights and others will have you laughing as you read.
My Impression:
I enjoyed this book. As a fan of horror and dark stories, I thought this book covered it all. The character takes were creative and different and I was surprised by several of the endings. Having one book with stories from each of these great authors is a collection that any horror fan should experience. I would highly recommend this book to any fan of this genre.
Reviews:
1. School Library Journal
The slightly generic cover design and forthrightly generic title of this collection may lead many readers to expect shrieking heroines, dreary castles, lurking vampires, and other tropes of the gothic tradition. They wouldn’t be wrong, but they wouldn’t be exactly right, either. Sure, many of these original tales, by the likes of Joan Aiken, Neil Gaiman, Gregory Maguire, and Vivian Vande Velde, ape the vocabulary of the genre (“necromancer,”“escritoire”) and play with its abundant clichés (a house has as many “curses as it has spiders and silverfish”). But the maidens in peril still have to do their homework; twisted events are as likely to transpire in American suburbs as in dreary castles (in M. T. Anderson’s exceptional “The Dead Watch,” shapeshifting witches eat Triscuits and use ATMs); vampires whine about the garlic in the spaghetti sauce and then attack their babysitters. Ideal for high-school literature classes studying Shelley or Stoker (Gaiman’s smirking contribution, which toys with genre definitions, would work particularly well in the classroom), this collection also
provides an excellent opportunity to introduce fans of Koontz, Rice, and King to some of the most imaginative exponents of YA dark fantasy. —Jennifer Mattson
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2. Booklist
This uniformly well-written collection features short stories by noted young adult authors such as M. T. Anderson, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Garth Nix, Celia Rees, Janni Lee Simner, and Barry Yourgrau. From Joan Aiken's more traditional tale about a ghost haunting a river in the gloomy countryside to Gregory Maguire's contemporary offering about a teenage delinquent forced to live with an elderly relative who has a secret locked in the attic, almost all of these stories evoke a shivery delight. Vivian Vande Velde's shocking and scary piece features the ghost of a psychopathic serial killer who looks like a teenager and kills an unsuspecting girl posing as a "dead body" at a haunted hayride. Neil Gaiman's selection lampoons the classic gothic scenario of a terrified, nightgown-clad heroine running away from a brooding manor house and will have readers laughing out loud in recognition. These varied tales take place in the distant past and in the high-tech present. Some are humorous while others have surprising twists or are reminiscent of classic fairy tales full of malevolent characters, but all share a love of the surreal or supernatural. Noyes's insightful introduction defines what a gothic tale is and includes information about the authors and the origins of their stories. A sophisticated, thought-provoking, and gripping read.- By Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library, NJ; Trevelyn E. Jones, Editor; Luann Toth, Managing Editor; Marlene Charnizon, Associate Editor; Daryl Grabarek, Contributing Editor and Dale Raben, Assistant Editor
Suggestion for Use:
I would use this book as a short story read aloud with older students. It could be used as an introduction to writing short stories or how to when writing the stereotypical characters can be created uniquely to a story. This would also be great to introduce the horror genre without having to get into a lengthy chapter book for demonstration.
Citations:
Mattson, J. (2004). [Review of the book Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales by D. Noyles]. Booklist, 101(4), 404. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2104/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5839463e-1cfd-4182-b0e7-71404461a7bd%40sessionmgr114&vid=323&hid=10
Rawlins, S. (2005). [Review of the book Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales by D. Noyles]. School Library Journal, 51(1), 134. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2104/ehost/detail?sid=
4bd0d626-d5bc-4e5e-821d-8aa96a0b2217%40sessionmgr110&vid=125&hid=8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=lih&AN=15630605
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