The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Check it out!

Are you a lover of lists like I am? I’m guessing you are and I hope you find my book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists, helpful in providing a rich variety of bibliographies, tips, and strategies for selecting and sharing poetry with the young people in your life. This book is intended for teachers, librarians, and parents who are looking for input on selecting poetry for young people ages 0-18. It contains 155 different lists and cites nearly 1500 poetry books—in a variety of categories:

1. Poetry Awards and “Best” Lists
2. Seasonal and Holiday Poetry Booklists
3. Multicultural and International Poetry Booklists
4. Thematic or Topical Poetry Booklists
5. Poetry Booklists Across the Curriculum
6. Booklists Highlighting the Form of Poetry
7. Creating a Poetry-Friendly Environment
8. Sharing and Responding to Poetry Out Loud
9. Teaching Poetry Writing
10. General Poetry Teaching Resources

You’ll find recommended lists of poetry books tied to calendar events throughout the year, poetry that targets the needs of students acquiring English as a new language, poetry to help children through worries, adjustments or difficult times, 20 lists of poetry to support the study of science, social studies, and language arts, lists organized by different poetic forms, question prompts to guide meaningful discussions, preparation and presentation pointers, display ideas, poetry quotes, lesson plan tips, poet birthdays, and a poetry scavenger hunt and treasure hunt for kids—all tools to help jumpstart a poetry program and keep it energized and fresh all year long. Check it out!

In this blog, you'll find one posting for each of the 155 lists featured in the book. Each posting gives a "taste" of the list to whet your appetite. They appear in the same order as they appear in the book. Just click on the "April" links in the sidebar to see individual postings or use the "Search" function to hunt for topics. Plus, you have the opportunity to suggest additional poetry books for any of the lists in the "Comments" area for each posting. Input welcome! -->

The NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children

The National Council of Teachers of English established its Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children in 1977 to honor a living American poet for his or her lifetime achievement in works for children ages 3–13. The award was given annually until 1982, at which time it was decided that the award would be given every three years. In 2008 the Poetry Committee updated the criteria and changed the time frame to every other year.

Recent recipient:

2011 J. Patrick Lewis

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Children’s Poet Laureate

The Children’s Poet Laureate was established by the Poetry Foundation in 2006 to raise awareness of the fact that children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative audience, especially when poems are written specifically for them. The Children’s Poet Laureate receives a $25,000 cash prize and a medallion that includes the inscription “Permit a child to join,” taken from an Emily Dickinson poem. The Children’s Poet Laureate serves as a consultant to the Foundation for a two-year period and gives at least two major public readings for children and their families, teachers, and librarians during his/her term. He/She will also serve as an advisor to the Poetry Foundation on children’s literature, and may engage in a variety of projects and events to help instill a love of poetry among the nation’s youngest readers.

Recent recipient:

2011 J. Patrick Lewis

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for Poetry for Children

The Lee Bennett Hopkins award established in 1993 is presented annually to an American poet or anthologist for the most outstanding new book of children's poetry published in the previous calendar year. For activities and ideas for promoting award and honor books, go to the Lee B. Hopkins Poetry Award Teaching Toolbox here: http://leebennetthopkinsaward.blogspot.com.

Recent recipient:

Wardlaw, Lee. 2011. Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku. Ill. by Eugene Yelchin. New York: Henry Holt.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

The Claudia Lewis Award for Poetry

The Claudia Lewis Award is given by Bank Street College in New York and was established in 1998. The award is given annually for the best poetry book of the year in honor of the late Claudia Lewis, a distinguished children's book expert and longtime member of the Bank Street College faculty and Children's Book Committee. For a toolbox with teaching ideas: http://claudialewispoetryaward.blogspot.com/

Recent recipients:
2012 Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems by Kristine O'Connell George (Clarion, 2011) and The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf (Candlewick, 2011)

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award

The Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award was established by Hopkins along with the International Reading Association in 1995 to encourage new poets in their writing. These poets have only published two books (to qualify for the award), but their work has already been judged to be of high quality. The award is given every three years.

Recent recipient:
Gregory Neri
Neri, Gregory. 2009. Chess Rumble. New York: Lee & Low Books.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

The Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry

The Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry focuses on North American poetry for young people and carries on the prior tradition begun by the British journal, Signal, to “instigate, provoke, and sustain a conversation about poetry published for children.” Recipients are now from both the U.S. and Canada. In addition, the Lion and the Unicorn Award includes an essay which discusses the award winners as well as speculates on issues unique to writing and publishing poetry for children, “painting a picture of that year in children’s poetry.” For a toolbox with teaching ideas for the award books: http://lionandunicornpoetryaward.blogspot.com.

Recent recipient:

Susan Blackaby. Nest, Nook & Cranny. Ill. by Jamie Hogan. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2010.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

NCTE Poetry Notables

The National Council of Teachers of English Committee on Excellence in Poetry Award selects the recipient of the award for the most outstanding children’s poet and is also charged with “exploring ways to acquaint teachers and children with poetry” including establishing an issuing a regular list of “poetry notables” for young people. What follows is the first list compiled in 2003-2006 and featuring the 10 best poetry books published during each of those three years, based on the criteria for excellence for the award itself: literary merit, imagination, authenticity of voice, evidence of a strong persona, universality and timelessness, and appeal to children. The committee included Sylvia M. Vardell, Peggy Oxley, Georgia Heard, Jan Kristo, Gail Wesson Spivey, Janet Wong, Poet, and Dan Woolsey. Check the NCTE.org site for current “poetry notables” lists.

The list begins:

Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. 2004. Over in the Pink House: New Jump Rope Rhymes. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills.
Frost, Helen. 2004. Spinning through the Universe. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2004. Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems. New York: Harcourt.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Cybils Award for Poetry

The “Cybils” award was established in 2006 to recognize the role of bloggers in the “kidlitosphere,” the online children’s literature world. “Cybils,” an acronym for the “Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards,” are given in a variety of genre and format categories, including poetry. For more information go to: http://www.cybils.com/

Recent recipient:

Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto
by Paul B. Janeczko
Candlewick Press

“’I am a watcher/sitting with those about to die.’ These are the words of Elisha Schorr/25565 as imagined by poet Paul Janeczko. In Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto, we all become watchers, viewing snapshots of the Holocaust, one after the other, each one deepening the grief and raising questions to which there are no answers. We watch, but we also hear the story of Terezin, voice by voice, insistent and haunting, so that the effect by the end of the collection is almost choral. For each song of despair, there is a concordant and essential song of anger, tenderness or resignation; like a recurring melodic theme, the voice of one child appears and fades and appears again. We hear the violin of one victim playing ‘as only the heartbroken can play.’”

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Children’s Choices Poetry Picks

Here you’ll find recommendations of books that children themselves have chosen as some of their favorites based on the nation-wide Children’s Choices project cosponsored annually by the International Reading Association and the Children’s Book Council. Each year, approximately 10,000 children ages 5 to 13 from different regions of the United States choose 100 favorites. Here are the POETRY titles children chose as their favorites for 2001-2011 (in the age/grade categories that appear on the lists).

The list begins:

Advanced Readers (Grades 5-6)
Seibold, J. Otto. 2010. Other Goose: Re-Nurseried!! and Re-Rhymed!! Children’s Classics. San Francisco: Chronicle.

Young Readers (Grades 3-4)
Shange, Ntozake, 2009. Coretta Scott. Ill. by Kadir Nelson. New York: HarperCollins.

Beginning Readers (Grades K-2)
Bateman, Donna. 2007. Deep in the Swamp. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Poetry and the Outstanding Science Trade Books for Young People

Since 1973, the Children’s Book Council has collaborated with the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) to produce an annual list of “Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12” with an eye for books that “convey the thrill of science” and provide the “the perfect way for students to build literacy skills while learning science content.” Here is a list of the poetry books that have been included in each year’s list since 2001 with a total of 24 works of poetry on the combined lists and an average of 2 poetry titles per year. (Complete annotated bibliographies are available on the NSTA and CBC web sites.)

The list begins:

Bulion, Leslie. 2011. At the Sea Floor Café; Odd Ocean Critter Poems. Ill. by Leslie Evans. Peachtree.
Arnosky, Jim. 2011. At This Very Moment. New York: Dutton.
Hauth, Katherine. 2011. What’s for Dinner? Quirky, Squirmy Poems from the Animal World. Charlesbridge.

Poetry and the Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People

Since 1972, each year the National Council for the Social Studies in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council selects a list of “Notable” children’s books (K-12) looking for books that emphasize human relations, represent a diversity of groups and are sensitive to a broad range of cultural experiences, present an original theme or a fresh slant on a traditional topic, are easily readable and of high literary quality, have a pleasing format, and, where appropriate, include illustrations that enrich the text. Here is a list of the poetry books that have been included in each year’s list since 2001 with a total of 55 works of poetry on the combined lists and an average of 5 poetry titles per year. (Complete annotated bibliographies are available on the NCSS and CBC web sites.)

The list begins:

Richards, Jame. 2010. Three Rivers Rising. New York: Knopf.
Hill, Laban Carrick. 2010. Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave. Ill. by Bryan Collier. New York: Little, Brown.
Adoff, Arnold. 2010. Roots and Blues, A Celebration. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Engle, Margarita. 2010. The Firefly Letters; A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba. New York: Henry Holt.

Joseph Thomas’s Canon of U.S. Children’s Poetry

In his seminal work, Poetry's Playground: The Culture of Contemporary American Children's Poetry (Wayne State University Press, 2007, p. 109), Joseph Thomas identifies eight key anthologies he suggests are children’s poetry essentials. He notes he chose anthologies with editors from “differing ideological standpoints” and from a variety of “historical moments,” hoping to be “descriptive, not prescriptive” and lay the groundwork for “future inquiry.” They are listed here in chronological order.

The list begins:

Untermeyer, Louis, comp. 1959. The Golden Treasury of Poetry. New York: Golden Press.

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!

Poetry for the Common Core

The newly developed Common Core State Standards Initiative offers English Language Arts standards that include a substantial poetry component. Individual poems are identified as study source material across the grade levels in terms of “complexity, quality, and range.” Most are from the public domain and thus are largely classic poems by poets of the past. But a sprinkling of contemporary and even multicultural poems is also included. It’s an interesting list to consider, but by no means exclusive—indeed the Standards home page (corestandards.org) notes, “They expressly do not represent a partial or complete reading list.” Here is a list of the suggested poems for your consideration.

The list begins:

K–1 Poetry Text Exemplars

Anonymous. “As I Was Going to St. Ives”
Rossetti, Christina. “Mix a Pancake”
Fyleman, Rose. “Singing-Time”
Milne, A. A. “Halfway Down”
Chute, Marchette. “Drinking Fountain”
Hughes, Langston. “Poem”

For more details, get your copy of The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists.
And if you already have the book, but would like to suggest additions, corrections, or offer other input, please do so in the COMMENTS area. Thanks!