Tag Archive | poetry

OF THE SUN: a Poem for the Land’s First Peoples, by Xelena Gonzales & Emily Kewageshig (Picturebook)

May5
In front of a bright sun, an indigenous person looks to the right where an eagle soars. Both are surrounded by branches of flowers and berries, with book title Of the Sun: a Poem for the Land's First Peoples, by Xelena Gonzales

“Child of the sun, you’ve been blessed since birth…”

So begins a poem celebrating the First Peoples of the Western hemisphere, from the Yamana at the far tip of South America to the Ben Za in Central America to the Inuit in North America’s Arctic regions.

The artist uses saturated colors and bold outlines with motifs from many Indigenous cultures of the Americas and Caribbean – eagle and bison, butterfly and dreamcatcher, Plains beaded embroidery, dancers and native produce.

“Child of the sun, on this land you are home.”

As you read along, listen to the poet recite this heartfelt work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDjOnJGQJE

Includes notes on the Native peoples named in the poem, plus wonderful letters to the reader from the poet and the artist.

I live on lands of the Caddo and Kickapoo people, shows https://native-land.ca/
On whose land do you now live?
**kmm

Book info: Of the Sun: a Poem for the Land’s First Peoples / Xelena Gonzales; illustrated by Emily Kewageshig. Barefoot Books, 2025. [author site https://www.xelena.space/about] [artist site https://www.emily-kewageshig.com/] [publisher site https://www.barefootbooks.com/of-the-sun] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

May the Fourth be with you! Back to William Shakespeare Star Wars, by Ian Doescher (fiction book review)

May4
Large sketched image of Darth Vader in embellished armor is surrounded by smaller images of Star Wars tie fighter, X-wing craft, Luke with sword, and Princess Leia, above book title: William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope, by Ian Doescher

Favorite holiday for that “galaxy far, far away” is today, so I celebrate the reissued books of Ian Doescher’s mashup series, retelling Star Wars tales in William Shakespeare’s style.

I recommended the original editions over a decade ago, beginning with William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope, the story that started it all, completely and lovingly rendered in epic Shakespearean verse: https://booksyalove.com/?p=3298

Next was The Empire Striketh Back (Star Wars: Part the Fifth) which I introduced with several original verses in iambic pentameter; here we meet Yoda who speaks in haiku: https://booksyalove.com/?p=3307

Rounding out the series based on the original movie trilogy is The Jedi Doth Return (Star Wars Part the Sixth), which I recommended here with a bit more verse: https://booksyalove.com/?p=4219; it even has a book trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVp5XZEang4

Doescher thought that the original trilogy was the end of his collaboration with masters Shakespeare and Lucas, but nay, good friends, the saga continueth!

I recommended William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace (Star Wars, Part the First) here https://booksyalove.com/?p=5811 again penning my own iambic pentameter plot summary, but missed out on The Clone Army Attacketh (Star Wars, Part the Second) and Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge (Star Wars, Part the Third).

Past the original trilogy are William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh, Jedi the Last: Star Wars Part the Eighth, and The Merry Rise of Skywalker: Star Wars Part the Ninth (newer titles, different subtitle format…)

Sadly all were out of print until Insight Editions began reissuing the series last year; find the whole list at https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ian-Doescher/232868011 including new works featuring the Mandalorian and Ashoka (publishing Sept. 2026).

Darth Vader, a woman in pink blouse, Storm Trooper stand in front of Death Star backdrop, with caption "May the force of reading be with you - Abdo - TLA 2012 - Star Wars"

Look for them all at your local library https://search.worldcat.org/libraries or independent bookstore https://bookshop.org/!

Which is your favorite Star Wars episode?
**kmm

(thanks again to Abdo Publishing for this photo op and their long-time support of Texas readers, librarians, and the Texas Library Association)

T is THE TRAVELING TACO & origins of our favorite foods! by Mia Wenjen & Kimberlie Clinthorne-Wong (kids nonfiction) #A2Z

Apr23
Clockwise around title of book The Traveling Taco: the Amazing & Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods, by Mia Wenjen: a huge ice cream cone, shaped pasta, French fries, juice, onion, spaghetti twirled on a fork, fish, pomegranate half, taco, olives, ginger, and shrimp.

We love it!
Let’s eat it!
It came from where?

Did you know that French fries didn’t originate in France, and cheesecake began in ancient Greece?

Find out about the roots of a dozen favorite foods and how cooks adapted them to new places using the ingredients and methods available there.

Learn the fascinating histories of fish and chips, jerk chicken, pizza, pasta, and more.

Each favorite food’s double-page spread includes what it is, where it came from, a “did you know?” fact, a rhyme, and how it changed in its new place.

“Recipes are crafted to delight and to nourish.
When a recipe travels, new minds help it flourish.
Popular foods can evolve over time.
Cooks add small changes that make them sublime.” (preface)

Kids of all ages will learn something new about a popular food in this yummy book (I did)!

What’s your favorite food?
**kmm

Book info: The Traveling Taco: the Amazing & Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods / Mia Wenjen; illustrated by Kimberlie Clinthorpe-Wong. Red Comet Press, 2025. [author site https://miawenjen.com/the-traveling-taco/] [illustrator site https://www.kimberliewong.com/] [publisher site https://www.redcometpress.com/nonfiction/taco] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

R is history repeating BARBED WIRE BETWEEN US, reverso poem by Wenjen & Encarnacion (Picturebook) #A2Z

Apr21
Two young girls, standing back to back, look at the viewer from behind a barbed wire fence. On the left is a short-haired Japanese-American girl, on the right a Latin American girl with long dark hair held by a patterned headband, on the book cover of Barbed Wire Between Us by Mia Wenjen and Violeta Encarnacion.

Forced from home,
separated from family,
children now behind barbed wire!

A Japanese American girl scans the dusty internment camp where everyone in her community has been taken during World War II, hoping for better days when they’ll finally be able to go home.

Decades later, a Latin American immigrant girl escaping with her family from bad conditions is taken to the same dusty internment camp, her hopes of better days now dimmed.

This reverso poem tells the two girls’ different/similar stories with a single set of phrases, like going up a musical scale and then back down.

“In this land of promise, we hoped to find a place to belong.” The phrase that begins the first poem ends the second poem.

“Where darkness is, light will shine again. From behind barbed wire, new life will begin.” The phrase that starts the second poem is the final line of the first.

Muted colors evoke the dreary setting of the camp, children and parents often separated by barbed wire, far away from pleasant places.

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been a prison camp for those considered different, from Geronimo and his Chiricahua Apaches in the 1880s to Japanese Americans during World War II to immigrant children since 2014.

What keeps you hopeful in the face of such things?
**kmm

Book info: Barbed Wire Between Us / Mia Wenjen; illustrated by Violeta Encarnacion. Red Comet Press, 2026. [author site https://miawenjen.com/barbed-wire-between-us/] [illustrator site illustrator site https://www.instagram.com/violeta.encarnacion/] [publisher site https://www.redcometpress.com/picturebooks/barbed] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

Q is for questions THINKING ABOUT THINKING: Impossible Thoughts and Complicated Feelings, by Grant Snider (Poetry book review) #A2Z

Apr20
A person looks out a window at flowering branch and flying bird. On surrounding walls and ceiling are other windows with branch and bird where the same person lies on their stomach reading a book, sits with a cup of coffee while writing, and makes paper airplanes from book pages at night. On the floor is book title Thinking About Thinking: Impossible Thoughts and Complicated Feelings, by Grant Snider.

April is Poetry Month https://poets.org/national-poetry-month-30th-anniversary, and art plus poetry gives us even more to contemplate.

In his latest collection, poet-artist Grant Snider walks around in his own head, as he overthinks, feels, seeks, thinks the impossible, thinks circularly, can’t sleep, dreams, and exists.

Each section includes several poems, each arrayed in comics-style panels on one to two pages.

Within “I think, therefore I feel” section, you’ll find “How To Be a Circle,” then “How To Be a Triangle,” and “How To Be a Square,” followed by “Emotional Tetris” (pg. 35), with illustrations in the style that fits the poem’s title:

“I try to keep my feelings in order
so when a new one comes…
I know how to handle it.
But when so many happen at once…
they stop making sense.”

A thoughtful collection for teens and adults by the author of Poetry Comics for middle grade readers, recommended here: https://booksyalove.com/?p=14435.

Do you write poetry about your feelings?
**kmm

Book info: Thinking About Thinking: Impossible Thoughts and Complicated Feelings / words and art by Grant Snider. Abrams Comic Arts, 2025. [author site https://www.grantsnider.com/] [publisher site https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/thinking-about-thinking_9781419776588/] Personal copy; cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I is I AM THE WIND: Irish Poems for Children Everywhere, edited by Jacob & Webb (Poetry) #A2Z

Apr10
Six painted panels - a swimming whale, three birds against a cloudy sky, a fox walking in starry night, bright flowers in sunshine, a raven flying away from wave, and flames flaring upward - surround title "I Am the Wind: Irish Poems for Children Everywhere"

“This poem can …
Open magical doorways
Pick a lock to your heart
Steal away on stormy seas
Make a dragon weep
Launch rockets to the moon
Offer somewhere to hide
Light a candle in the dark
Befriend a rainy day
Catch a slippery character
Awaken the explorer within
Be everything you wish for

Let the journey begin.”
(“This Poem Can …” by E.R. Murray, pg. 1)

April is Poetry Month, and this wonderful, wide-ranging collection of poems from Ireland is the perfect way to celebrate.

Mostly contemporary with a few traditional rhymes (“Molly Malone”) and famous poets (W.B. Yeats, Padraic Colum), these poems examine what’s important to kids: family, the world outside their door, friendship and aloneness, pets and wild creatures, worries and hopes.

“Hold my hand – I hear
A girl from my class saying to me
I am a little scared – she knows
Hearing voices saying words I don’t know
She holds my hand tightly
Smile is the only language I know.”
(“Friends” by Monika Nowakowska, pg. 26)

Gathered into thematic sections, poems on similar subjects are often featured on facing pages, and poems in Irish appear with English version, too.

Look for the free I Am the Wind poetry kit at the publisher’s site www.littleisland.ie for more information about these poems and writing activity prompts for poetry practice.

What is your favorite poem about?
**kmm

Book info: I Am the Wind: Irish Poems for Children Everywhere / edited by Lucinda Jacob & Sarah Webb; illustrated by Ashwin Chacko. Published by Little Island Books, 2024 US. [Lucinda’s site https://www.lucindajacob.com/] [Sarah’s site https://www.sarahwebb.info/about/q-a/] [Ashwin’s site https://whackochacko.com/work/] [publisher site https://www.littleisland.ie/products/i-am-the-wind-irish-poems-for-children-everywhere?variant=48294748324167] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher via Publisher Spotlight.

Y is a year’s worth of funny poems: A WHALE OF A TIME, selected by Lou Peacock, art by Matt Hunt (Poetry picturebook) #AtoZ

Apr29
Book cover of A Whale of a Time: a Funny Poem For Each Day of the Year, selected by Lou Peacock, illustrated by Matt Hunt. Shows a large smiling blue whale swimming in sea with fish and submarine, spouting many objects up into the air: ghost, dinosaur, piano, robot, horse, rainbow, car, trophy, lion, kite, ladder and more.

Make every day more humorous as you spend a year with funny poems from around the world.

Some are very short:

even among the insects of this world,
some are good at singing,
some bad
by Kobayashi Issa, translated by R.H. Blyth (August 8)

Others are a bit longer, like Jack Prelutsky’s classic “The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven” on November 27th among a cluster of fall food feasting poems.

Every double-page spread features subject-related poems such as June 26-28’s poems “Spinach”, “I Eat My Peas With Honey”, and “Eat Your Veg”, with a vivid illustration connecting them.

And the poem titles themselves invite us to enjoy reading them – “Banananananananana” (August 2) and “Hippopotamouse” (Sept. 30) and “Jamaican Summers” (June 12) and “The Fork Tree” (Oct.7) and “Lunchbox Love Note” (on Feb. 14, of course)

Happy to reread some of my favorites, like “Eletelephony”, by Laura E. Richards (for Feb. 25) which begins
Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant –
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone…

This vibrantly illustrated oversize volume includes an index of poets, an index of poems, and the ever-helpful index of first lines. Find related learning resources on the publisher’s page: https://nosycrow.us/product/a-whale-of-a-time/.

What’s your favorite funny poem?
**kmm

Book info: A Whale of a Time: a Funny Poem For Each Day of the Year / selected by Lou Peacock, illustrated by Matt Hunt. Nosy Crow, 2023. [editor site https://nosycrow.us/contributor/lou-peacock/] [illustrator site https://matthuntillustration.com/] [publisher site https://nosycrow.us/product/a-whale-of-a-time/] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

P is GREEN PROMISES: Girls Who Loved the Earth, by Jeannine Atkins (YA fiction) #AtoZ

Apr18
Book cover of Green Promises: Girls Who Loved the Earth, by Jeannine Atkins. Shows 2 women in old-fashioned dresses and hats, one sitting on riverbank and sketching its tall grasses, one wading in the river and examining rocks she has picked up there.

Grasses swaying in the breeze,
different rocks in the river,
what stories do they tell about time and change?

Now packed into Grandmother’s small Chicago flat with her siblings and widowed mother, Agnes misses green meadows, learns to draw sidewalk flowers on old envelopes, wishes for school past 8th grade.

School soon for Marguerite, exploring the river’s edge with its intriguing rocks, across from Washington DC where her father and other Black men labor. Her parents never learned to read, yet she dreams of going to high school.

Agnes becomes a talented botanical artist, is asked to travel and survey grasses of the west at her own expense (because she’s a woman), at last working in the Smithsonian.

Marguerite longs to become a teacher, to make a difference in her world, to envision what factors increase flood risks in the nation’s capital.

Women march for the right to vote in 1913! Agnes jailed with other white women protestors, Marguerite and other Black women shunted to the end of the parade.

Will Agnes’s decades of work to find and catalogue the grasses of the world be recognized?
Can Marguerite find a university where she can earn degrees in geology?
How many women will they both inspire to learn and discover and succeed?

This evocative novel-in-verse brings us the lives and work of women who persevered in natural sciences when society’s expectations tried to limit them.

By the author of Hidden Powers: Lise Meitner’s Call to Science (recommended at https://booksyalove.com/?p=12527) and Stone Mirrors: the Sculpture and Silence of Edmonia Lewis (here https://booksyalove.com/?p=8212).

What’s your favorite museum of natural history?
**kmm

Book info: Green Promises: Girls Who Loved the Earth / Jeannine Atkins. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2025. [author site https://www.jeannineatkins.com/] [publisher site https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Green-Promises/Jeannine-Atkins/Girls-Who-Love-Science/9781665950572] Review copy & cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I is for IMAGINE! Rhymes of hope to shout together, by Bruno Tognolini and Giulia Orecchia, translated by Denise Muir (Poetry) #AtoZ

Apr10
Book cover of I is for IMAGINE! Rhymes of hope to shout together, by Bruno Tognolini and Giulia Orecchia, translated by Denise Muir; shows bright-colored collage image of a young drummer marching with a vivid sun behind them.

April is Poetry Month – and time to Imagine!

Translated from Italian, these wide-ranging wishes of children and those who love them have usual rhyming word pairs, as well as subtle ones:

“If only the world outside could be taught
Not in the classroom — our teachers, they ought
To open the window, show how things happen
How much we’d fathom … Imagine!” (pg. 6)

Vibrant collage illustrations accompany each of the 24 poems, which all begin with “If only” and end with the command/wish/dream “Imagine!”

“If only these things could change for the better
New days could dawn full of music and laughter
A drum beat to make all our heartbeats align
With love all the time … Imagine!” (pg. 45)

Visit the publisher’s site https://www.redcometpress.com/picturebooks/imagine for a teaching guide AND a video with all the poems as verses of a song!

What better world and neighborhood can you imagine?
**kmm

Book info: Imagine!: Rhymes of hope to shout together / Bruno Tognolini, illustrated by Giulia Orecchia, translated by Denise Muir. Red Comet Press, 2022. [author site brunotognolini.com] [artist site giuliaorecchia.it] [publisher site https://www.redcometpress.com/picturebooks/imagine] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

They search to see WINGS IN THE WILD – wings of hope? by Margarita Engle (YA book review)

May8
Standing brown girl paints mural of tropical birds while seated brown boy serenades her with guitar - book cover of Wings In the Wild, by Margarita Engle

Creative people caged like birds,
our overheating planet –
where is justice?

Fleeing Cuba when their massive wood sculptures protesting the imprisonment of artists are revealed by a hurricane in 2018, Soleida is separated from her parents – the sixteen year old animal rescuer must continue out into the world, alone.

Yet another wildfire consumes his parents’ California mansion and the forest where Dariel serenades animals with Cuban love songs. Better to leave their elite expectations and go with Abuelo to help interview Cuban refugees stranded in Costa Rica, experience its natural wonders before climate change destroys them, too.

In spring 2019, Soleida and Dariel meet among the sea of refugee tents – her hopes of freedom shredded to the bone, his anger at these injustices burning hot.

What will she think of the tropical animals and birds that move in closer and closer to hear his songs and guitar?
What will he think of her journey-story, surviving fear and flood and hunger, leaving her parents behind?

Together, they find her artist cousin nearby in the cloud forest.
Together, can they let the world know about her parents, trapped in Cuba?
Together…can they have any future together?

Watching incredible birds, painting them, singing them near, pondering what could be – this novel-in-verse traverses difficult situations and wonder-filled landscapes.

Readers will recognize Soleida’s neighbors Liana and Amado from Your Heart, My Sky (recommended here), much like the interwoven stories of people who have left Cuba connect with those remaining there. Just released in paperback on April 23, 2024.

How far would you go to be free?
**kmm

Book info: Wings in the Wild / Margarita Engle. Atheneum, hardcover 2023, paperback 2024. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.