Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Another Goodwill Autograph

Copy of Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888 (Simon & Schuster, 2003) with inscription and signature. 


Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Kids Caught Reading


He's reading an Usbourne book called Prehistoric Animals. He's very interested in dire wolves and saber-toothed cats after a recent visit to the La Brea Tar Pits with his grandma. 

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Illustrated Children's Poetry Anthologies I Love

Contemporary volumes. 
Kennedy-Muth are a terrific combination. "Feathers" by Joseph Bruchac from The Tree That Time Built causes me to spontaneously burst into tears. 

Titles, clockwise from top left:




Vintage and out-of-print titles. The two on the right include great background information and biographical details. 

Titles, clockwise from top left:


And here are two very special contemporary poems I first met in the Kennedy-Muth Family book. I think both them might resonate with the readership of this blog.

To P.J. (2 yrs. old. who sed write a poem for me in Portland, Oregon)
by Sonia Sanchez

if i cud ever write a
poem as beautiful as u
little 2/yr/old/brotha,
i wud laugh, jump, leap
up and touch the stars
cuz u be the poem i try for
each time i pick up a pen and paper
u. and Morani and Mungu
be our blue/blk/stars that
will shine on our lives and
makes us finally BE.
if i cud ever write a poem as beautiful
as u, little 2/yr/old/ brotha,
poetry wud go out of bizness.



Scaffolding
by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done,
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seems to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me,

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall,
Confident that we have built our wall.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Why I love having a large home library


Why I love having a large home library: At 830 on a Saturday night, when kiddo looks up at the stars and wants to know about that killer in the sky, we can pull a variety of works from our shelves and do a mini-unit study on the constellation Orion. 

"The Hunter"

A night long
Across the sky
Orion the hunter
Goes striding by

What is the quarry
He pursues
Through stars as bright
And thick as dews

And who has heard
His great dog bark
Sirius baying
Through the dark?





Saturday, January 31, 2015

Geocentrism? Preschool worldview


"This is the light side and this is the dark side, and this is the sun and that is the moon, and it says 'This is the world I want to change.' ". --Jackson, 4 years 10 months

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Rise and Read

Reading is the pathway
From the dungeon
To the door.

Freedom

Reading is the highway from
The shadow to the sun

Freedom

Reading is the river
To your liberty
For all your life to come

Let the river run

Learn

Learn to read.



“Choose Your Freedom -- Learn to Read”
by Dr. Maya Angelou, 2002

As published in Rise and Read by Sandra L. Pinkney & Myles C. Pinkney, Scholastic, 2006.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Lucy Calkins' List of Short Read-Aloud Novels for K-2

pp 38-39, Raising Lifelong Learners, Calkins

  • Stuart Little, by E.B. White
  • The Dragonling, by Florence Koller
  • Catwings and Catwings Return, by Ursula Le Guin
  • Fantastic Mr. Fox and George's Marvelous Machine, by Roald Dahl
  • The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes
  • Harry's Mad (and others), by Dick King-Smith
  • Matthew and the Sea Singer, by Jill Patton Walsh
  • Chocolate Fever, by Robert K. Smith
  • A Lion to Guard Us, by Clyde Robert Bulla
  • Owls in the Family, by Farley Mowat
  • Stone Fox, by John R. Gardiner

Thursday, January 8, 2015

There Was a Child Went Forth by Walt Whitman

There Was a Child Went Forth

by Walt Whitman


There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he looked upon, that object he became.
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain
   part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years:
The early lilacs became part of this child....
And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit
   afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school....

The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture
   --the yearning and swelling heart....

The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the
    curious whether and how.
Whether that which appears is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are
    not flashes and specks, what are they?

These became part of that child who went forth every day,
    and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.