A Poetry Almanac for April

To celebrate “National Poetry Month,” here are 100 recent poetry books for young people connected to a significant event or happening for each day of the month of April—a kind of almanac of children’s poetry. Depending on your time constraints, you can feature just one poem to celebrate the day, connect any of the recommended poetry selections with a related book of fiction or nonfiction for storytime, or even lead a compare/contrast discussion of multiple approaches to the same topic (in poetry, fiction, or and/nonfiction). Any of these approaches will help anchor the notion that poetry is indeed for every day.

It begins:

April 1: Humor

Event: In addition to being “National Poetry Month,” April is also designated as “National Humor Month,” beginning with April Fool’s Day, of course.

Poetry: Humorous poetry often ranks as children’s favorite type and luckily there are many collections of poetry to share and laugh about.

Katz, Alan. 2011. Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking. New York: McElderry/Simon & Schuster.

Lewis, J. Patrick and Yolen, Jane. 2012. Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs. Ill. by Jeffrey Timmins. Charlesbridge.

Nesbitt, Kenn. 2009. My Hippo Has the Hiccups with CD: And Other Poems I Totally Made Up. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.

Silverstein, Shel. 2011. Every Thing On It. New York: HarperCollins.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.

And if you already have the book and would like to offer additions, corrections, or other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!