Haiku

The Poem That Will Not End by Joan Bransfield Graham

The Rhythm is Gonna Get You!

Today Ronna joins the tail end of a blog tour for Joan Bransfield Graham’s new book, The Poem That Will Not End: fun with poetic form and voices, with illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker (Two Lions/Amazon Children’s Publishing, $17.99, Ages 5 and up).

The Poem that will not end
The Poem That Will Not End by Joan Bransfield Graham with illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker, Two Lions, 2014.

JBG’s book was having a tour.
Clever blog tours are hard to ignore.
So I just read her book
And you must take a look
‘Coz good poetry’s never a bore!

If this book doesn’t inspire kids to try their hand at poetry, I don’t know what will? I found myself relating to the main character, Ryan, who cannot quell his urge to compose poetry. Even his name, Ryan O’Brian, rhymes. Poetry fills his waking hours – at breakfast (see image below), walking to school, in the playground and even in the cafeteria where he must resort to using food to share his Couplet for French Fries.

Two lines are not enough to express
How much I adore your potato-ness.

9781477847152_1_sm._V363266671_
Interior image from The Poem That Will Not End by Joan Bransfield Graham with illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker, Two Lions, 2014.

As the story progresses, Ryan dabbles in an excellent array of poetry (that begs to be read aloud) written in every wonderful style from Limerick to Quatrain. What’s so wonderful about this poetry collection is that it’s an engaging story incorporating poems to share Ryan’s feelings and teach poetry at the same time. Throughout the rest of Ryan’s day, he creates poems on the soccer field, poems outside in the rain and one in the bathtub (part of Fever below), that’s very, very clean!

FEVER

I cannot stop this fever in my brain,
I feel compelled to write, and write, and write.
Day in, day out, the words just fall like rain.

The story ends when Ryan’s completed a word-filled 24 hour cycle of poetry and can no longer produce another poem. His teacher, Ms. Frost (hmmmm …) gives the class an assignment to write a poem about spring. What she doesn’t know is that Ryan’s brain has reached poetry capacity! After he explains his poetry predicament to his teacher, she’s more than happy to have him hand in “recent work” that we’ve all read.

Brooker’s cheerful artwork jumps off the page and is a beautiful blend of collage with drawing and photos. I found myself carefully examiming every illustration to absorb all that Brooker delivers. Kids, parents and teachers will appreciate the helpful guide at the end explaining every kind of poetic form and voice used to create The Poem That Will Not End. By including examples as varied as Acrostic to Villanelle, Graham’s clever book serves double duty as both a joyous celebration of the magic a good poem makes and a primer on how to do it well.

Check out these other great bloggers’ sites to see what fun they had with Graham’s book!

Poetry for Children–Dr. Sylvia Vardell, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, a behind-the-scenes look,
Tales from the Rushmore Kid–Tina Nichols Coury, editor interview with Melanie Kroupa,
Double Olympic Poetry Challenge–an international event!
No Water River–Renee LaTulippe (in Italy–using “Soccer Ball” as a prompt, write an apostrophe poem for a piece of Olympic sporting equipment),
Teaching Authors–Six Authors Who Also Teach–(USA–using “Bike” as a prompt, write a maskpoem for the same sports item–skis, skates, etc.
The Miss Rumphius Effect–Dr. Tricia Stohr-Hunt, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA,
Jama’s Alphabet Soup–Jama Kim Rattigan–review of book, potato recipe, plus write “food couplet” (a la “Couplet for French Fries”) to be entered into giveaway
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Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog!

Yay! I can finally review a book that makes it totally appropriate for me to post a photo of my own dog. Here’s Darwin, my gargantuan two-year-old chocolate standard poodle . . .

 

The Hound Dog’s Haiku: and Other Poems for Dog Lovers ($17.99, Candlewick Press, ages 6 and up), written by Michael J. Rosen and illustrated by Caldecott winner, Mary Azarian, is clever and oh, so charming. The book introduces 20 different breeds of pooches to children through darling illustrations and simple haikus. (I’m a haiku fanatic, so this aspect of the book really pleases me.) I love the fact that children can learn about a variety of breeds while getting a little lesson in poetry. In the back of the book are Notes for Dog Lovers, with explanations of the poems and information about each breed. This book would make a great gift for a dog-loving child. Just remember to also adopt a puppy to go along with the book.

– This book is reviewed by Debbie Glade.

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