picture books – SALT CITY VERSE

We Belong, by Laura Purdie Salas, Illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Matt Forrest Esenwine. Thank you for hosting and please stop his blog, Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme to see what he has in store for us.

This week I am concerned, as I have been for a long time, for children in this country, every single one.

Recently state laws have been passed or proposed that will criminalize doctors and parents of one politically powerless group, transgender kids. Their crime as doctors or parents? Simply trying to help young people they care about, in privacy, cope with serious mental health issues concerning gender identity.

While these laws are considered and passed, the incidence of kids wanting to harm themselves is rising.

Ignorance fosters fear and we need less of it.

To grow up, kids need positive messages, like the one found in WE BELONG, a new picture book by Laura Purdie Salas, Illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera. Whether you quiet, loud, tall, short, white or black, or from a distant place, you deserve respect in this world. You deserve safety.

The art is colorful and joyful.

Salas speaks in these pages of the right to exploring your most personal identity. All of us are on a journey to understand our own private feelings and to accept who we are without shame and certainly without government interference. It’s personal and a lifelong journey.

People don’t set out to pick from a list of identities and simply put it on. No, who we are is something we learn as we grow up, hopefully along with adults and others in a community who love us, teach us, want the best for us, and do not shame us. It’s true growing up in the city and the country.

This is a short excerpt by Laura Purdie Salas. It reads well aloud, as you might expect from such a talented poet.

There are boys. There are girls.
And even more choices.
Let's build a world where there's room for all voices.

Play with the toys that you think are fun.
Put on a tutu and hit a home run!
Be who you feel like.
CHOOSE WHO YOU ARE. 
Let your own heart be the guiding North Star.

Everyone needs to hear this message as a child:

Thank you, Matt, for hosting.

Little Libraries, Big Heroes, by Miranda Paul

Welcome to Poetry Friday. Our host on this first week of November is Mary Lee Hahn HERE. Thank you Mary Lee! Be sure to stop by and see what she’s sharing this week.

Today, I read a pile of picture books at my local bookstore and would like to share one by a writer who is passionate about kids and books, Miranda Paul. She is one of the founders of the WNDB movement. Her book, LITTLE LIBRARIES, BIG HEROES, Illustrated by John Parra, is a book worth adding to your library. I have. It’s not just about little libraries. It’s also about following a passion, growing an idea, generosity and public service all in one. This book is for everyone.

Several weeks ago I wrote wrote about my hometown Carnegie Library Here. But one doesn’t have to have 350 million dollars to build thousands of libraries. In LITTLE LIBRARIES: BIG HEROES, we learn that some libraries can be built for much, much less and still make a big impact.

In this true story, a young man named Todd, an “ordinary guy” who had been inspired by his mom to love books, built the first little library, like the one above. Neighbors loved it. It caught on. He told his friend about it.

     Todd felt his nifty box of books had potential. He called up his friend Rick, who was always chock-full of grand ideas. 

     Rick thought that they could 
build thousands of little boxes!

     Like Andrew Carnegie,
who once built 2,510 libraries! 

     They could take trips!

     Like Lutie Stearns, who brought
traveling libraries all over Wisconsin!

Rick liked the idea, but . . .

WAIT A MINUTE!

     Andrew Carnegie had been a
wealthy businessman. Lutie Stearns
was a trained librarian. The two of
them were just ORDINARY guys.
(And they were particularly low
on cash.)

     How man libraries could two
ORDINARY guys create?

     How far could ORDINARY people
spread an idea?

     They agreed on one thing--
they wanted to find out.

So the two “ordinary” young men decided to explore their dream of creating a Little Library movement. This is their story. The result: as of 2019, there were 75,000 official, registered Little Free Libraries in eighty-eight countries.

I was touched by this book about ordinary people doing extraordinary things and making a difference. It’s an important story.

Before I close I’ll turn your attention to the changing weather and the holidays looming with three seasonal haiku:

November winds howl.
Leaves rattle and acorns roll,
but winter still comes.


Holiday darlings.
Butternuts roast in ovens.
Hubbard waits its turn.


Christmas Spirit hides  
behind Thanksgiving's turkey,
practicing carols.

© Janice Scully 2021

Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting today!

NO BUDDY LIKE A BOOK, by Allan Wolf

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.

About Snow

Thank you Michelle Heinrich Barnes for hosting Poetry Friday. Congratulations on a new Today’s Little Ditty! This is my first time posting here, and I am grateful to be part of it.

Our first snow fell this week, the first storm of winter. When I woke, the ground was white with and inch or two. At the coffee shop later in the afternoon, out the window snowflakes were falling still, but just barely, almost invisible. They meandered. It was the lightest of snows.

Like trees or the sky, there is always a story or a poem one can write about snow. Ellen Yeomans’ new picture book in rhyming verse, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is about snow and what it means to three children.

The cover shows them full of wonder and expectation:

The story begins:

“Some snow is First Snow

We’ve waited for so long snow.

Is it really snow snow,

or only heavy rain? “

Many different kinds of snow appear in the text and illustrations, such as: ” . . . hit the ground and melt snow.” “Sleet Snow.” “Snow day snow.” The children can’t wait for it to come and stay so they can play all winter in the snow.

The narrative arc revolves around the seasons. Eventually, in the end, it takes these children to “Spring Snow” and “Please, please, no more snow” and a glimpse of upcoming spring activities. The rhyme is perfect and a joy to read aloud.

Back at the coffee shop, the snow I saw out the window was a curious kind of snow that inspired this:

TO A SNOWFLAKE DRIFTING DOWN AFTER YESTERDAY’S STORM

You’re an afterthought,

a glistening decoration,

spiraling down,

about to sprinkle the ground.

Since you are in no rush, tell me:

Is it easy to fall?

Does it take any effort at all?

Some Snow Is . . . by Ellen Yeomans, and illustrated by Andrea Offermann, celebrates winter and snow. I never tire of stories about the seasons. If you live in a climate with four distinct seasons, like I do, one has no choice but to embrace snow and try to see its beauty and diversity.

Find Ellen’s Yeomans’ book, Some Snow is . . . , here: