Bluestem Award Nominees for 2013

After a fun second year, the Bluestem Award is back for 2013. Geared for readers in grades 3-5, this year’s list of nominees includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Watch for future posts describing the nominated books over the coming weeks. Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech Jack does not want to write poetry. He believes [...]

Poem in Your Pocket Day – NPM 2012

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. To encourage reading poetry every where people are asked to keep poems in their pockets today.  Here at the library we have a Poetree loaded with some of our favorite pocket-size poems.  Visit us today and also let us know what is your favorite mini-sized poem. “Keep A [...]

“A Poem Lovely As A Tree”

  Celebrate Earth Day with “Poetrees”, by Douglas Florian, and have plenty of fun.  Each of the 18 poems celebrates the wonder of trees, from the Giant Sequoia (the world’s tallest trees) to the Bristlecone Pine, one of the oldest trees on earth (alive for fifty cen-trees).  Each page opens vertically, with collage art on [...]

Video Poetry

To celebrate National Poetry Month, check out The Poetry Foundation’s wonderful Children’s Poetry website , where you can enjoy some great video poetry.  Here are a few perfect poems to celebrate springtime: “Hope” by Emily Dickinson (read by Claire Danes and signed by a 9 year old girl).  “April Rain Song” by Langston Hughes (read by the poet) [...]

Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys

  The wind and I play tug-of-war with my new kite. The wind is winning.   Imagine that it is raining. Your sister is standing right next to you holding her umbrella over her head in an attempt to keep dry. There is a big puddle right in front of you. You think: If this puddle [...]

National Autism Awareness Month

Besides April being National Poetry Month, it is also National Autism Awareness Month. Autism Epicenter: Autism Poems from the Heart contains a collection of  beautiful poetry by people who either have or have loved ones who have autism. One of my favorites is  Untitled by Rachela Anderson: We are the children and adults with autism. [...]

Mirror, Mirror

What if you put a mirror up to a poem? How would it sound if it was reversed? Would it make sense? Try reading “Longing for Beauty” from Marilyn Singer’s Mirror, Mirror to find out. First read the poem in the left column. Next, read the poem in the right column. Look at the top of [...]

Step Gently Out – National Poetry Month

Step Gently Out words by Helen Frost and photography by Rick Lieder combines incredible photography of insects and plants and lyrical poetry that moves through the pages as if on the wind.  There is also a gallery at the end that gives more information on each of the insects featured.  Here’s a sample of the this [...]

National Poetry Month

Every April we celebrate National Poetry Month by sharing some of favorite poems hoping we inspire you to share some of your favorite poems. To kick off April I made one of my favorite kinds of found poetry, a spine label poem using the titles on the spines of books to make the lines of [...]

X.J. Kennedy

X.J. Kennedy is a poet that is known for his hysterically funny poetry.  His collection, Exploding Gravy: Poems to Make You Laugh is full of poems to tickle your funny bone. Stevie the Internet Addict While staring at the Internet Young Stevie Stoop would quite forget To do his homework, change his socks, Or dump [...]