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Book List: Just Right Poetry for Middle-Graders

By Sue Cowing on April 3, 2019 / Articles, Book Lists, For Parents, For Teachers, Nonfiction

It’s National Poetry Month! What better way to celebrate than to explore some of the great poetry books available for readers ages 8-12? As you read poetry this month or anytime, remember that poets tune in to the sounds of feeling and the feelings of sound. Please READ POEMS ALOUD to fully enjoy them.

Here are some appealing collections by single poets:

Marilyn Singer in Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems, ingeniously turns familiar fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella upside down in poems that you can read forward and backward for opposite meanings! Her other books in reverso form are Follow Follow (featuring more tales like The Little Mermaid and The Tortoise and the Hare) and Echo Echo, based on Greek myths. All three are illustrated by Josee Masee.

Patrick Lewis’s Everything is a Poem: The Best of J. Patrick Lewis, Illustrated by Maria Cristina Pritelli, earns its title. It includes a range of poems written our third Children’s Poet Laureate. Subjects include animals, people, reading, sports (some of the best baseball poems I’ve read–take that, Casey at the Bat!), riddles, and funny epitaphs.

In Animal Poems, Valerie Worth captures the uniqueness of animals ranging from bear to porcupine to mole to jellyfish in brief but rich free-verse word pictures. Stunning paper-cut animal illustrations by Steve Jenkins accompany the poems.

Joyce Sidman is our premier nature poet for children. Her extraordinary books explore the natural world with vivid poems in various forms, based on solid science. Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors depicts animals that have adapted around the world and are definitely not endangered. See also her other titles , including her Caldecott Honor Winner Song of the Water Boatman and Winter Bees

A good way to discover new poems and poets you love is to browse through anthologies with a variety of poets and poems.
In Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets, Kwame Alexander, Chris Coldly and Mary Wentworth have written poems in homage to great poets past and present who have inspired them., reflecting their styles and ideas. The subjects include Maya Angelou, Basho, e.e.cummings, Emily Dickinson, Walter Dean Myers, Pablo Neruda , Mary Olver, Rumi, and even Chief Dan George. A joyful book with bold illustrations by Ekua Holmes.

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye is also a superb anthologist with a special interest in poems from less familiar voices. See The Space Between our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East, and This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World. She also compiled a collection of poems written by her students in poetry-in-the-schools classes over the years: Salting the Ocean: 100 poems by Young Poets.

More and more novels in verse are appearing, most of them for at adult readers.
A wonderful exception is Kwame Alexander’s be-bop and free verse Newbery Award winner The Crossover. Here’s what Publisher’s Weeklyhad to say in its review of the book: “The poems dodge and weave with the speed of a point guard driving for the basket, mixing basketball action with vocabulary-themed poems, newspaper clippings, and Josh’s sincere first-person accounts that swing from moments of swagger-worth triumph to profound pain.” A page turner, even if you’re not especially a sports fan. See also the other books in his Crossover series: Booked and Rebound.

Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is a spare, quieter free-verse novel published in 2007 that still resonates in the present moment. This touching story of a young Sudanese war refugee trying to find his way in America is told through his own eyes and voice.

Middle Graders love humor. Here are some books that take pitch-perfect aim at the middle-grade funny bone.

I’m loving Chris Harris’s I’m Just no Good at Rhyming and other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grownups. Of course he is good at rhyming, but kids will find the title poem hilarious.

Caleb Brown is also a humor treasure, especially his Hypnotize a Tiger: Poems about Just about Everything. See also The Ghostly Carousel: Delightfully Frightful Poems. He has a new book coming out in June, Up Verses Down: Poems, Paintings, and Serious Nonsense.

Douglas Florian is best known for his slightly younger books of clever word-play and paintings. But he has two big books of humor: Poem Depot, Aisles of Smiles and Laugh-eteria. He has also collaborated with J. Patrick Lewis in the wildly clever Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems.

Younger middle-grade fans of Shel Silverstein are in for a treat with his posthumously published book of spoonerisms Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook.

What about middle-graders who would not only like to read poetry but to write their own? Of course the best way to learn to write is to read and write and write some more. But the following books may give young writers some encouragement and inspiration:

Kathi Appelt, Poems from Homeroom : A Writer’s Place to Start

Ralph Fletcher, Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem from the Inside Out and Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You.

Paul B. Janeczko, A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms

Ted Kooser, The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets.

Readers, the hardest part about compiling this list was choosing from all the possibilities! Please use the comments to add poetry titles you think or know from experience middle-graders would love. Then let’s all get to our bookshelves, independent bookstore, or local library and celebrate National Poetry Month!

STEM Tuesday — NSTA Linking Literacy Special Edition & Contest Winners

By STEM Tuesday on April 2, 2019 / Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, STEM Tuesday

Hello STEM Tuesday Readers! I am delighted to welcome Carrie Launius to the STEM Tuesday blog. Carrie is one of the teachers that is spearheading the brand new Linking Literacy Event at the National NSTA event this year in St. Louis, MO. This is a brand new event offered at the National Science Teacher Association conference that allows teachers and trade authors to mix, mingle, and learn from each other.

I thought it might be fun to ask Carrie a few questions about how the Linking Literacy event was designed.

Hi Carrie. Thanks for joining us. What gave you the idea to create the Linking Literacy event at NSTA?

I have been in education for a long time as a classroom teacher, science coordinator, and an assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. I have been in districts that are very successful and other districts that struggle. Having this background and having the opportunity to work closely with E. Wendy Saul, Ph.D., truly to “guru” of literacy and science, I believe the integration of literacy is valuable in all content areas. We often hear teachers say math and science go together while ELA and social studies go together. I think all contents support each other. We do not live our lives in silos nor do students live in them. I have had enormous success, especially with lower socio-economic students enriching science using high-quality trade books. With Dr. Christine Royce president of NSTA (Christine is a huge proponent of literacy integration and writes a monthly column “Teaching with Tradebooks” for NSTA), I approached her and asked if I could try to bring authors to the conference to talk about their books and how science trade books enhance science instruction. She 100 % supported the idea. She not only supported me, she worked closely with me to make the event happen.

Why is using trade children’s books about STEAM/STEM a great way to do this?

Margaret Anastas says, ” A good picture book tells a compelling story.” Using high-quality trade books opens the world of possibilities. Today, we are teaching students for careers that have not even been thought of, so why not allow them the opportunity to use both convergent and divergent thinking and the opportunity to wonder, hope and dream? Where else besides a book can one really understand the thinking stance of a character? Television and movies don’t do this. Students use so many skills while reading nonfiction books way beyond learning to read. Good nonfiction trade books push readers to think in a new way, to imagine what they have never been able to before and helps them make sense of the crazy world around them.

You are also the one who helped to create the NSTA’s Best STEM book award. What was the drive to do that? How is it different from the Outstanding Trade Science Book Award that NSTA gives?

At one time I was working with Dr. Saul and writing for a non-profit, Springboard to Learning. My task was to create a STEM-based curriculum. As I always do with any writing, I look for books to enhance the curriculum. I tried to find books that were STEM-like. What I quickly found was that people called books “STEM Books” but I could see no rhyme or reason to why. Descriptions of books would say, “Great STEM Book!” So I decided to do research to find out just what that meant, I quickly found out it meant nothing. So I called the editor of NSTA, at that time, David Beacom and said, “You really need to have a Best STEM book Award. What you are calling STEM is not STEM!” He took me up on the idea and told me to start researching. I reached out to three colleagues – all amazing educator and fellow book enthusiasts, Wendy Saul, Christine Royce, and Juliana Texley. We spent many hours thinking about what exactly was a STEM book. Christine came up with the idea to look at what is NOT a STEM book. Wendy coined the phrase, “Inviting readers to examine someone’s thinking stance.” Juliana was NSTA president at that time. She pulled together other groups to look at what I wrote, then shared with my “posse” then with the group. We came up with clear criteria and we started the award.
OSTB and BSB are very different. Content, content, content, is what makes an OSTB book great. Thinking is what makes a BSB great. Identifying a STEM book is much more subtle. While the criteria for OSTB is very black and white, BSB is truly gray. BSB does not have to be nonfiction, it does not have to have perfect pictures but it does need to show innovation, inventing, creating or change.

Do you see Linking Literacy events at future NSTA Events?

It is my hope that Linking Literacy will become a part of NSTA Conferences. I hope every author takes a Sharpie and saves the dates April 2 -5, 2020, Boston. Linking Literacy is to support teachers, but more importantly to support kids. I have already asked (begged) Wendy, Christine, and Juliana to consider staying on this journey with me and working to create more experiences by growing the event in Boston and beyond.

Anything else you want to add?

I would be remiss if I did not tell you how amazing and supportive NSTA staff has been in making this happen. They have allowed us to bend the rules just to make a difference for teachers. Delores, Dayna, Jason, Kim and Kim- thanks for all you do!

If you haven’t considered going to the NSTA event, you should! It’s going to be EPIC. Click Here for information about the National Science Teacher Association conference and how to register for it.

Besides, if you decide to go, you will be able to meet a few of the STEM Tuesday bloggers who are featured authors there:

Heather Montgomery, Jodi Wheeler-Toppen, Patricia Newman, Carolyn DeCristofano, Mary Kay Carson, and me (Jennifer Swanson)

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And now, the winners of the STEM Tuesday Search Party Contest…. (drum roll please….)