The purpose of this anthology clearly written in the editor's notes is to have gratitude on a daily basis, The editor intentionally selected 32 diverse poets to write the poems and each one is written in a different format. Thanku fulfills a need for gratitude and mindfulness in the general collection that could be used in a display for health and wellness or Thanksgiving. Miranda Paul, the editor, is qualified for compiling the collections because she is an award-winning children's writer, and co-founder of the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books.
Audience
Thanku is appropriate for the intended audience of children ages six and up because the poems are rather short and have age-appropriate vocabulary. The poems could be used as mentor texts for writing poems in a poetry unit in 3-5 classes, or they could be read aloud to children for exposure to the sound and rhyme of poetry in K-2 classes.
Scope and Language
The collection includes 32 unfamiliar poems written by some familiar poets who are still alive today. All the poems are related by the theme of being grateful and thankful, and they are written in 32 different formats. The editor intentionally chose to showcase traditional and newly invented forms of poetry such as the McWhirtle created by Bruce Newling. The language, rhyme, and meter are quite varied as there are so many different types of poems such as a sonnet, ballad, pantoum and tricube just to name a few. In fact, each type of poem is defined in the end notes of the book, which would be helpful for students and teachers using this book.
Organization and Illustrations
The poems are paired so that the illustrations cover two pages that are facing one another, for example, on p. 6-7 the black backgrounds are shared. The illustrations beautifully enhance the meaning of the poems, and in some cases like in the photo below, the poem and illustration are one in the same. The illustrator combined sketches with watercolor to create eye-catching images for each poem.
Bruchac, J., Nye, N. S., Blaeser, K. M., Shin, S. Y., DeCaria, E., Shillington, B., Venkatraman, P., Hooks, G., Yolen, J., Scully, J., Waters, C., Lindstrom, C., Liu, S., Flores, C. D., Naberhaus, S., Ruiz-Flores, L., Paul, B., Smith, C. L., Richards, P., … Paul, M. (2019). Thanku: Poems of gratitude. Millbrook Press.
Purpose and Audience
The purpose of Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems is to introduce children to poetry in short manageable chunks of text. Children will be exposed to famous poets such as Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Richard Wright, and more through seasonal poems. Poems like "Fog" by Carl Sandburg and "Water Lily" by Ralph Fletcher are short poems with strong imagery that children will love to hear. Paul B. Janeczko was a poet and anthologist, which makes his a highly qualified compiler of this collection.
Scope and Organization
Language
Imaginative and appropriate similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification are found throughout the collection. The figurative language used in the poems would make them great mentor texts for teaching figurative language. The quatrain poems have end rhymes that would be fun to read aloud to young children to expose them to the rhyme and rhythm of poetry.
Scope and Organization
The collection contains 36 poems by 20+ poets grouped according to the four seasons: spring, winter, summer and fall listed this way in the table of contents. The poems in the collection are both traditional and unfamiliar poems, and some of them are just two, three or lines in length.
Illustrations
Melissa Sweet's illustrations are adorable hand sketched images colored with a muted vintage color palette. The illustrations and poems are perfectly placed on the pages, and the images often stretch across two pages to bring the poems to life.
Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems. (2018). Candlewick Press.
Kam Mak writes about his experience growing up in two cultures in Chinatown, a city within a city, and his purpose is explained on the dust cover flaps. My Chinatown serves a need in the general collection for kids who may be immigrants or first generation U.S. citizens. My Chinatown is written for grades K through 3, and it is appropriate for this age group because of the large bright illustrations and elementary level vocabulary. This book would also be a great read aloud to celebrate the Chinese New Year or add to a display for AAPI month.
Language
The poet uses figurative language including imagery to create a sad and nostalgic tone because he misses his life in China. The poems seem to be free verse that tell a story of the poet's life in one year. The poems easily flow from one event to the next, but they do not have a steady rhythm or rhyme scheme.
Organization and Illustrations
The poems in this collection are organized by the seasons of one entire year. The author is reflecting on his experiences in the past when he had to quickly pack and move to New York from China. He also writes about his present experiences in Chinatown and compares them to his experiences back home.
Mak, K. (2016). My chinatown: One year in Poems. Harpercollins Childrens B.
Joyce Carol Thomas wrote the poems in this collection to celebrate all the shades of black skin. The Blacker the Berry is a wonderful addition to any library for the purpose of windows and mirrors. Black children will see themselves in this sweet anthology, and all children will have the opportunity to view others' experiences. The intended audience for this anthology is K through grade 3, and the simple concepts, straightforward vocabulary, and child-filled illustrations make grades K-3 an appropriate audience.
Language
Thomas uses figurative language to compare skin color to objects in nature like snowberries and coffee. The figurative language and illustrations give the reader a visual image of the skin tones she is describing. One line that was particularly striking to me was: "It's the milk of kindness that makes us human." This message of being kind to everyone is a great lesson that could be taught using this poem.
Organization and Illustrations
Each poem describes a different shade of black skin, and the illustrations perfectly show the skin tone described in that particular poem. The illustrations cover facing pages with the majority of the picture on one page and the text on the opposite page. All of the illustrations contain people in nature, which gives the book a relaxing, calm, and positive tone. Floyd Cooper used gold, purple, and light brown hues to create a radiant ambiance and to give the reader as sense of late summer or early autumn.
Thomas, J. C., & Cooper, F. (2022). The blacker the berry. Amistad.
No comments:
Post a Comment