Tag: Laura Purdie Salas

OSKAR’S VOYAGE, By Laura Purdie Salas

Welcome to Poetry Frida! This week Rose is hosting Here, at her blog Imagine the Possibilities. Thank you, Rose, for hosting!

I finally arrived home after a five week absence visiting my family and was greeted by snow upon my arrival. Not much, only an inch, but today, it is 26 degrees. Spring is holding out a little longer.

Today I received Laurie Purdie Salas‘ new picture book OSKAR’S VOYAGE! It was a Copy signed by the author and the book’s talented illustrator Kayla Harren.

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Oskar, the main character, a squirrel, is adventurous, sweet and engaging and the setting is also like another character. As Oskar leaves the comfort of his oak tree and finds himself on a Great Lakes freighter, we follow along, trying to spot him. The boat’s route is revealed on an engaging map, the first thing the reader sees after the front cover:

Tracing Oskar’s voyage through the Great Lakes will be fun for kids, and so will the boat with its various machines, the galley and even the mail bucket. Salas’ poetry will inform and entertain:

Rumble. Movement. Oskar wakes.
Climbs four stairways lined with gear. 
Pilothouse holds charts and screens:
tools to help the captain steer.

And indeed the illustrator takes the reader to the stairways and the pilothouse as we follow Oskar and try to locate him on the page, reminiscent of “Where’s Waldo.”

The back matter defines the boat terms and an interesting detailed map of this freighter, known as a “footer” because it is 1,ooo foot long. My oldest son, who loves all things maps would have loved this book.

While I was away the last five weeks, I took out my novel in verse to tweak it some more. My WIP, WHEN MY BROTHER WENT TO WAR, is historical fiction, that takes place during the Vietnam war in the year 1969-70. This is how the novel begins, in the voice of my main character Maddie.

SEWING
                                        
Just before I turned fifteen,
the end of eighth grade,
I began to stitch together 
what I knew about

my family,
my town,
and the War, too,
just like I stitch a dress
at my Singer sewing machine
on our dining room table.

except 
just before I turned fifteen
only stitching a dress
made sense.


Janice Scully 2024

I have doubts whether publishers would be interested in a book set in 1969, especially in verse. And I am told by a friend that a novel in verse as a debut novel might be a hard sell. Still reading it through, I still like it and it seems relevant in many ways, though there are no cell phones or computers. So I’ll keep trying to find a home for it. I enjoyed the process, and for me, that has meant a lot.

Well, everyone. Have a great weekend! I’ll close with a ground squirrel I encountered in Pacifica, California. A cousin of Oskar? 

Ground Squirrel on the beach
eyeing the sea and bright sun--
seeking adventure.

Janice Scully 2024

POETRY FRIDAY IS HERE: Clouds, Rain, and Thunder

Welcome! Welcome to Poetry Friday and today I have the honor of hosting. It’s a busy weekend for me with family visiting but over the weekend read and comment on everyone’s post. Please check in with Mr. Linky at the end to add your name to share your blog.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here.

I have been thinking about storms this week. I love watching a storm in progress, the changes in the sky, the air and the trees. I love the sound of rain and wind as long as I feel safe. I know I’m not the only one who likes to think about storms. Many writers have written and write about dramatic weather. I’ll recommend a picture book and a few poems out the very many that have been inspired by weather.

CLAP! CLAP! BOOM!: The Story of a Thunderstorm, by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Elly Mackay, takes us into the heart of a storm, the sights and terrific sounds. It is written in rhyming verse that will definitely appeal to kids. It would also be fun for parents to read aloud.

We learn of a storm from it’s suspenseful onset, where we feel something is about to happen. Below, three children sense a storm is coming when they see clouds, just as we all do. We hear what they see in Purdie Salas’ lyrical verse. . . and the storm builds.

Starting low,
they grow
and grow--
white above,
now gray below.

Rustling, 
murmuring
rush begins
or whispering leaves
in newborn 
winds.

The climax of the storm is shown inside the book and also on the cover of the book, seen above, featuring the roiling sea and lightening bolts lighting up a craggy mountain. It’s a lovely illustration.

The storm ends with the world quiet and “shining.” Storms have satisfying arcs.

ZAP! CLAP! BOOM! is a wonderful picture book capturing stormy excitement that all humans, young and old, can share.

Besides ZAP! CLAP! BOOM!, I bought another book, a new poetry collection, with gentle rhymes and lovely art work.

I enjoy the humor and voice in THE FATHER GOOSE COLLECTION OF POETRY, by Charles Ghingha and illustrated by Sara Brezzi. I love the subtle humor, for instance, in the following short fun poem. 

THUNDER BUGS
By Charles Ghigna

On stormy nights
I often wonder,
Do Lightning bugs
Make the Thunder?

What a wonderful question!

In books new or old, there is an endless number of poems for those charmed by weather. Here’s a gentler poem by Langston Hughes:

Langston Hughes 1901-1967

April Rain Song
By Langston Hughes.

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby

(The rest HERE)

And other by Elizabeth Coatsworth who was born the same year as my grandmother:

Elizabeth Coatsworth 1893-1986

SUMMER RAIN

by Elizabeth Coatsworth

What could be lovelier than to hear the summer rain
cutting across the heat as scythes cutting across grain?
Falling upon the steaming roof with sweet uproar,
Tapping and rapping wildly at the door?

(The Rest HERE)

Even with the inconvenience, I love the changes in weather within each week and within each day.

Below is a poem I wrote last year. An earlier version was published in an on line journal. But that version seemed overdone to me. I really didn’t like it. I have since cut most of it, eighty percent!, realizing that shorter is in this case much better. 

AFTER THE RAINSTORM MATINEE

We stand in the quiet,
shivering, awed, 

as high in the balcony
rainbows applaud.


© Janice Scully (draft)

Have a wonderful weekend!

WE BELONG, by Laura Purdie Salas, Revisited

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Margaret HERE. She is always ready with a post that inspires readers, and special thanks to her for organizing the Progressive Poem that gets more intriguing every week.

This week I ask that you please scroll down and click on the title of my last week’s post, featuring WE BELONG, a fabulous new picture book by Laura Purdie Salas, Illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera.

I was slow last week getting my on-line link in the line up, so I’m posting it again. My apologies! But this book that is relevant and I want to make sure it isn’t missed.

Thank you, Margaret, for hosting this week!