Pulling Poems from a Dappled World

“Glory be to God for dappled things!” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his squirming-with-life poem “Pied Beauty.” What finer season than spring to share fresh poems with children?

Raczka, Bob. Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys. illus. by Peter H. Reynolds. Houghton Mifflin, 2010. This might just turn out to be one of children’s (not just boys’) all-time favorite collections of haiku. The engaging images and hearty humor shine: “I watch the worms squirm/and decide to bait my hook/with hot dog instead.” Another kid-pleaser: “If this puddle could/talk, I think it would tell me/to splash my sister.”

Alarcon, Francisco X. Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems/ Jitomates Risuenos: Y Otros Poemas de Primavera (The Magical Cycle of the Seasons Series). Children’s Book Press, 1997. A fun, bilingual collection by a renowned Mexican-American poet. The 18 poems include “Words are Birds” and others teeming with nature and joy.

Giovanni, Nikki. The Sun Is So Quiet: Poems. Illus. by Ashley Bryan. Holt, 1996. Collection of poems by acclaimed poet celebrates the seasons, nature, and an array of childhood experiences.

Hopkins, Lee Bennett, editor. Opening Days. Harcourt, 1996. Nineteen poems by various poets such as Jane Yolen and Walt Whitman have fun with sports, including baseball, skiing, karate, and tennis.

Hopkins, Lee Bennett, ed. Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems. illus. by David Diaz. McElderry, 2010. Superb collection of poems spanning the seasons. Includes such poets as Carl Sandburg, Marilyn Singer, and Karla Kuskin.

Noda, Takayo. Dear World. Puffin, 2005. Bright and beautifully illustrated collection of brief poems celebrating the natural world.

Ruddell, Deborah. Today at the Bluebird Cafe: A Branchful of Birds. illus. by Joan Rankin. McElderry, 2007. Ruddell’s poems of cardinals, a woodpecker, and others are whimsical and lively. Her humor reigns in such poems as “There’s a Robin in the Bathroom”: “He uses my toothbrush/to scour his wings./He sloshes and splashes/on all of our things.” Rankin’s bright, lively illustrations add to the fun. Also see Ruddell’s A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk.

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What’s With the Eggs?

As I peruse the Easter displays at local bookstores, I’m reminded once again of the scarcity of excellent picture books relating to this holy day for Christians. In many ways, the egg, with its promise of life — or at least protein for sustaining the living — is a fitting symbol of Easter. Here’s a trio of terrific egg books that educators and families can use to celebrate the day.

San Souci, Robert D. The Talking Eggs. illus. by Jerry Pinkney. Dial, 1989. Ages 6-9. 
This folktale was such a favorite with second-graders, I made it a tradition to read it aloud each year just before Easter. A Louisiana Creole version of the Cinderella story, it’s a rich brew of magic and poetic justice.  Way long ago, there lived in a shack a haughty woman and her daughter, Rose, and stepdaughter, Blanche. Rose took after her lazy, mean-spirited mother, but Blanche was “sweet and kind and sharp as forty crickets.”  One day Blanche set off to fetch water for the others, and she met a strange old woman who asked her for water. Blanche politely offers her a drink and is invited to visit the old woman’s house. Before she gets there, though, the old woman tells her she must promise not to laugh at anything she sees. When she reaches the woman’s house, Blanche sees strange, multicolored animals and a chicken house full of talking eggs. Because Blanche treats the woman respectfully and does exactly as she asks, she is rewarded with eggs that contain gold! silver! rubies! silk and satin and even a carriage to take her home in style.

Of course, when she arrives, Rose and her mother lust after those riches. The mother tells Rose she must seek out the old woman. Rose, however, acts rude and lazy when she encounters her, and her reward turns out to be very different. Pinkney’s vivid, detailed full-page illustrations won the Caldecott Honor, and add much humor to this folktale. Kindness triumphs — and makes for a read-aloud that every child should hear.

Polacco, Patricia. Rechenka’s Eggs. Putnam, 1996. Ages 6-9. In the Ukrainian tradition, Easter is the time for showing off brightly painted eggs.  Babushka lives alone in her cottage in the country, outside of Moscow. Everyone admires her beautiful Easter eggs that she paints every winter and brings to the big Easter festival in Moscow. One day she rescues a wounded goose she names Rechenka, and nurses her back to health. Rechenka accidentally breaks Babushka’s eggs, and the elderly woman is dismayed. Rechenka, though, surprises her by laying 12 magnificent, decorated eggs in their place. Babushka takes the eggs to Moscow and wins another prize. When she returns, she finds the goose has flown but has left one her one last egg, which, when hatched, will become her companion. Polacco’s vibrant, detailed paintings, showing off the intricate patterns of  Ukrainian-style Easter eggs, as well as colorful dresses, rugs, and the city’s onion-shaped domes, bring this tale to life. Winner of the International Reading Association Children’s Book Award. For another beloved Easter classic, consider Polacco’s Chicken Sunday.

Aston, Dianna Hutts. An Egg is Quiet. illus. by Sylvia Long. Chronicle, 2006.  Ages 4-6.

“It sits there, under its mother’s feathers… on top of its father’s feet… buried beneath the sand. Warm. Cozy.” Aston captures the astounding variety of eggs with a simple format of offering brief, poetic statements, followed by details and gorgeous illustrations. Sylvia Long, whose Mother Goose book is one of the very best available, lends her remarkable talents to this nonfiction book. Her lovely watercolor paintings of 60 eggs range from tiny hummingbird eggs, to tubular dogfish eggs, and gloppy frog eggs. This book is a wonder to behold and lends itself well to science lessons for the young. Another use? Plop this treat into a child’s Easter basket.

Image via Wikipedia

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Brother, Can you Share the Truth?

The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, author of The Theory of Communicative Action, saw a clear link between violence and distorted communication. Upon recently revisiting Ken Burns’ Civil War series, 150 years after those first shots fired at Fort Sumter, I found the stench of distortions everywhere, then and now. They will never leave us. How, after all this time, can anyone deny that the defense of slavery is what ripped this country apart? When I saw those images of wild, headstrong boys so eager to support the Confederate cause, I thought of the deception they’d been fed as a kind of maggot souffle. Pierce the puffed-up top, and out come the worms.

Hell is what Goethe called the relentless war depicted in the Iliad. I recall once reading excerpts from Rosemary Sutcliff’s stunning version of this epic poem to fifth graders. Why, a child asked me, are we hearing about all this war, in a Quaker school? I replied, you folks have already answered that question, as, over and over, you comment on the futility of it all. At last, the tragic war reached its bleak denouement — as do all wars. In our land, the Civil War ended, the dumb teeth of tombstones protruding in the fields of slaughter. We live in the aftermath of that carnage. Can we count the ways distorted communication has led us to subsequent wars? How often do we miss opportunities to nourish relationships that strengthen our culture and our own spirits?

We do not serve our older children well by shielding them from the bloody results of war, or by glorifying it. Like us, they will witness and experience a multitude of conflicts fed by communication gone astray. Why not use literature to engage them in discussions that will motivate them to think critically, to share their views in constructive ways, and to inspire them to work for a more just and peaceful world?

Recommended Read-alouds for Middle School

Lewis, J. Patrick. The Brothers’ War: Civil War Voices in Verse. Featuring the Work of Civil War Photographers. National Geographic, 2007. Acclaimed children’s poet Lewis has written 11 poems exposing the horrors of war, from myriad perspectives. Each remarkable poem is accompanied by a full-page archival photograph of the time. Readers will find much to ponder in both the well-chosen images and the words. Fittingly, Lewis opens the book with the sharp, lingering image of slaves picking cotton near Savannah, GA: “I stooped to stoop/ And stooped to chop,/ Then clipped to scoop/ The cotton crop.” Other poems imagine accounts by John Brown and Frederick Douglass, letters from soldiers to their families, and a narrative by a runaway slave. One of the most haunting poems is “Boys in a Brothers’ War,” in which a wounded young soldier from Virginia falls on a vole’s home. “Ignorant of war, the vole had his pea-sized heart/ set on the bark of a chinaberry tree, but there/ was Private Flowers’ boot…” Detailed captions explain elements of the war that relate to the poems. Also included: a selected-event timeline, map of states, a note on the photography, and author’s notes on the poems.

Lupton, Hugh. Adventures of Odysseus. Barefoot, 2010. Hear master storyteller Lupton read his wondrous version of Homer’s Odyssey on the accompanying CD.

Sutcliff, Rosemary. Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad. Frances Lincoln, 2000. This fluid, supremely readable version offers young people an accessible version of the Iliad.

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Chasing a Matzo Ball or a Golden Lamb

Shulman, Lisa. The Matzo Ball Boy. illus. by Rosanne Litzinger. Dutton, 2005.  Ages 6-8.

It’s almost Passover, and a grandmother regrets that no one will be around to share her seder, to retell the Passover story, or to enjoy her matzo ball soup. What’s a lonely bubbe to do? Why, make herself a matzo ball boy, that’s what.

The morning of Passover she plopped the little ball of dough into her pot of chicken soup. When she lifted the lid, though, he jumped out. Oy! Where did he think he was going? That sassy boy cried: “Run, run, as fast as you can./ You can’t catch me./ I’m the matzo ball man!”

Children will enjoy chanting the refrain in this delicious little Yiddish-flavored version of The Gingerbread Man. The little imp encounters a tailor, a yenta (the local gossip), a rabbi, and a fox. In a creative twist, the Matzo Ball Man escapes the fox by jumping into the river. Litzinger depicts the boy’s broad smile as he speedily swims away. Throughout the book, her stylized watercolor-and-colored-pencil artwork, featuring full, round forms and a bright backdrop, add a bounce to this fractured tale.

The Matzo Ball Boy meets his end, though, after he accepts a man’s invitation to enter his cottage and share Passover with him and his wife. Inside, the wife stirs a pot of soup, the smell of which is somehow familiar to the boy. Can you guess what else will land in that pot? This tasty little story, a bit wordier than most traditional versions of The Gingerbread Man, still makes for a fun read-aloud. And what better time to try a little Yiddish on your tongue?

Greene, Ellin. The Little Golden Lamb. illus. by Rosanne Litzinger.  Clarion, 2000. Ages 5-8.

This sprightly Hungarian version of “The Golden Goose” is a feast for the eyes and the ears. A young man works as a shepherd for a year and in return, asks for a golden-fleeced lamb. The lamb is not just any lamb, though; it dances whenever he plays his flute. An innkeeper’s daughter tries to steal it, but upon touching it, she gets  stuck. When the lad leaves the inn, he plays his flute and the lamb dances. The would-be thief must follow. As the lad makes his way, a ridiculous procession of characters accumulates: “”Down the road they went,/The shepherd lad playing his flute,/The little golden lamb kicking up its heels,/On the lamb’s tail the girl,/On the girl’s back the baker’s peel,/And the little golden lamb carried them all,/dancing down the road.”  They reach a castle, where a king has promised the first one to make his sad daughter laugh will win her hand. The happy ending is highlighted with the illustrator’s exaggerated profile of the chortling king. Litzinger’s lively, whimsical watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations are as infectious as the good-natured tale.

A Thorn for the Greedy

Kasbarian, Lucine. The Greedy Sparrow: An Armenian Tale. Illus. by Maria Zaikina. Marshall Cavendish, 2011.

The Greedy Sparrow is a joy to read aloud, from its traditional opening, “Once there was and was not,” to its humorous ending. In her debut picture book, Kasbarian draws on memories of her father telling her this old folktale, first written down by the Armenian poet Hovhannes Toumanian. Kasbarian’s clear-eyed and nuanced retelling makes for an appealing tale for young children.

The simple plot follows a sparrow that gets a thorn in its foot. He flies until he finds a baker, whom he asks to pull the thorn out.  After she agrees “with pleasure,” the sparrow flies away, without even thanking the helpful baker. The baker flings the thorn in the oven and gets back to her work. Soon, the sparrow returns, with an angry-looking brow this time, demanding the baker hand over the thorn. Befuddled, the baker says she’s thrown it in the oven. If she can’t return the thorn, she must give him her fresh bread, he insists. Realizing that the sparrow will not listen to reason, she hands over some fat, round lavash.

Now the sparrow’s looking cheerful as he holds onto his undeserved reward. He meets a shepherd tending his sheep and asks politely enough if he will watch his bread. The shepherd, as did the baker, responds, “With pleasure!” As with all the characters, Zaikina uses thick black outlines and colors that gain texture from oil paint and layers of wax. Dialogue floats inside cartoonish balloons that emerge from each speaker. The shepherd, like the other characters in this book, wears traditional Armenian clothes — in this case, black wool, trimmed in red.

The Greedy Sparrow has an authentic flavor that distinguishes it from many picture books aimed at ages 4 to 8. The illustrator joins the author in pumping fun and telling details into this book. Zaikina’s palette exudes folksy, bright colors and images, including a range of traditional Armenian clothing styles for the various characters. Kasbarian roots her retelling in its homeland by her spare words, her traditional opening line, and her inclusion of specific Armenian customs and landmarks, such as Mount Ararat, encountered in the course of the sparrow’s wanderings.

Back comes the sparrow, demanding his bread from the shepherd – who has eaten it. This time, the bird demands a sheep instead. As did the baker, the shepherd sees “it was no use arguing” and gives in to his demands. If the ridiculous nature of this request doesn’t make the reader laugh, the illustration with the small bird carrying off a rotund sheep will.

Somehow the bird flies with the sheep over Mount Ararat and Lake Van to reach the island of Aghtamar, where an outdoor wedding reception is in full swing. The illustrator portrays a lively scene: brightly-garbed dancers link arms, and musicians strum a davul and a zurna, instruments common at traditional Armenian weddings. Then there is the wedding party seated at a table laden with jugs of wine, platters of shish-kabob, and mounds of purple grapes. If only Zaikina had chosen to integrate these two pages as one spread, the scene would have more visual impact. Still, she gives readers much to enjoy. A highlight of the book’s illustrations is the scene showing the bride in her traditional Armenian wedding gown of vivid green, red, and white, a dress the author says resembles her own. The next time we glimpse that lovely gown the bride is riding off with the bird – the tradeoff for the sheep they decided to slaughter for the feast.

As they reach the Arax River, they meet a minstrel playing his lute. Again, the pattern continues. The bride is sharp enough to escape when she sees the musician so entranced by his tune. The arrogant sparrow demands the lute and, again, gets his way.

How smug he looks as he lands on a thorny branch and tilts up his chin. There he perches, serenading himself with his brand-new bragging song about all he has managed to trick people into giving him. His pride gets the better of him, though, when he rocks just a little too much and at last gets his just reward – a  thorn in his foot.

The tale of a self-centered character who gains nothing by cheating others is one that children and adults will relish. Kasbarian provides a fine discussion/activity guide on her Web site.

For More Armenian Folktales

Hogrogian, Nonny. One Fine Day. Aladdin, 1971. Ages 4-8. Not every Caldecott winner makes for a great read-aloud, but this fine cumulative tale is a don’t miss. A greedy fox steals an old woman’s milk and must make amends in a series of trades.

Marshall, Bonnie C. and Virginia Tashjiian. The Flower of Paradise and Other Armenian Tales. Libraries Unlimited, 2007.  Recommended source for educators and folklorists, this collection of 50 tales includes such tales as “The Invincible Rooster” and “Seven Stars.” Cultural info and a bibliography included.

For More on Armenia

Kasbarian, Lucine. Armenia: A Rugged Land, An Enduring People. Dillon, 1998. Well-researched, illustrated, and organized, Kasbarian presents a fascinating portrait of her ancestral homeland. Part of the Discovering Our Heritage series, the book includes fast facts, maps, details on the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the people’s legends and holidays, as well as info on Armenians in the U.S. and the changing nature of Armenia, now that the former Soviet republic is again independent. Also included: appendices on the Armenian language and on embassies in the U.S. and Canada; a glossary, a bibliography, an index, as well as a table of contents.