I’m violating my own risk aversion, my own dislike of wasting hours on a bad book (whatever that means) by suggesting this: if your book group wants to branch out, try poetry! And I suggest you try my new book, Sweetened Condensed, which I consider almost un-poetry, because it’s accessible, never once mentions Plato or Sophocles, and I hope is also relatable.
Read MoreAnyone can use this journal, even if you don’t normally write poetry. The Poetry Journal Project began to inspire everyone to explore and enjoy poetry.
Read MorePoetry Month is coming to a close, and with it I'll share five Zolotow picture book classics. Books like these are "out of style" in current publishing, which is a shame. I'd much rather read Flock of Birds over and over than books about crazy hair or farting dogs.
Read MoreAs we continue to celebrate poetry, I continue to study picture books. I don't think I could count how many I've absorbed in the past years. Oodles? Oodles of oodles? A lot.
Read MoreIn honor of National Poetry Month, I'll be sharing some of my favorite poetic picture books. Beautiful, vivid, delightful reads. Here are five by Cynthia Rylant, an amazingly prolific author with an insane diversity of titles to her name.
Read MoreA fascinating and diverse selection of poems centering on things lost and things found. Everything from family to self to race to culture to the first day of school to death to words to language to innocence...
Read MoreI absolutely love this book. Here is another homeschool resource, one I used time and again when I “assisted” with a homeschool coop class on writing. It made the notion of metaphor come alive, along with personification, vivid detail—really everything I wanted to teach...
Read MoreLear was the youngest of 21 children and was brought up by his sister, who cared for him until he was nearly 50. He was an eternal child with “invincible boyishness,” according to the editor. This collection...
Read MoreThis is a Charlotte Zolotow book, which is no surprise. Such lovely language, metaphor, all the poetic devices one learns in school. I don’t read music, but this reads like I imagine music to be read...
Read MoreWould it be admitting ignorance to say I don’t like poems I don’t understand? I mean, I sort of understand “The Perceiving Self,” but I mostly don’t. It makes me wonder...
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