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. 

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:

• A Family of Poems, selected by Caroline Kennedy
  
• Poems to Learn by Heart, selected by Caroline Kennedy
  
• The Oxford Treasury of Children's Poems (1994 ed.), selected by Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark

• Sing a Song of Popcorn, selected by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
  
• The Tree That Time Built, selected by children's poet laureate Mary Ann Hoberman

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

Titles, clockwise from top left:

• The Big Golden Book of Poetry, selected by Jane Werner (see previous blog post about this title)
  
• The Golden Treasury of Poetry, selected by Louis Untermeyer
  
• The Illustrated Treasury of Poetry for Children, selected by David Ross
  
• A Child's First Book of Poems, illustrated by Cyndy Szekeres

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.