It’s Poetry Friday, today hosted at Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference, here. Thank you, Tabatha, for hosting. Be sure to check out what she has for us this Poetry Friday.
I have had several things on my mind this week. First, this has become a picture book week for me as I dusted off a draft of a picture book and revised it. I wanted some fresh ideas. I wanted to make it more poetic, and more illustratable.
So, I attended a picture book class through the UCLA Extension, and although I had attended picture book talks before, I wanted to think about the topic again and it was a wonderful review. I’ve always been fascinated by how pictures and text together create story. The class was taught by writers April Halprin Wayland and Alexis O’Neill, and illustrator Barney Salzberg. I found some books to place on my “to read” list, such as April’s TO RABBITTOWN, and Alexis’ LOUD MARY.
Also, as I was thinking about picture books, through Jone Rush Macculloch and her fabulous interview on 1/4/21, I discovered poet, Allan Wolf, who has a new 2021 delightful rhyming picture book, entitled NO BUDDY LIKE A BOOK. It is illustrated by the talented Brianne Farley.
It a wonderful book and all about why all of us read: It takes us places. And where does this story take us? Everywhere.
Allan Wolf begins with this quatrain:
We learn important stuff from books. We learn to speak and think. We learn why icebergs stay afloat . . . and why Titanics sink
And so we visit space:
and other countries, represented by their fabulous birds. The names of these feathered creatures and the countries they are from are written under the image. The illustrations are colorful and playful. The children charming.
Wolf’s rhyming is spot on and reads without a hitch. We understand as we read and he reminds us, in case we might have forgotten:
But although these wondrous places hold a certain fascination, the greatest nation in the world is my own imagination!
These are some of my thoughts during my picture book week. The Progressive Poem took an interesting twist on Rose Capelli’s blog on 1/7 and I can’t wait to see where it goes. And thanks to Margaret Simon who has organized the Progressive Poem to celebrate this year’s National Poetry Month.