
April is National Poetry Month. I had some pretty powerful poetic influences when I was a child. The first was my father, a high school English teacher. He loves poetry and sometimes would recite poems to me before I went to sleep at night. His deep voice would thrill me as he recited his favorites. I can't remember the names of his bedtime poems but I do remember that my favorite involved cannibals. Fifth and sixth grade were very poetic years. When I was in fifth grade I was fortunate to have a teacher that loved poetry. She encouraged us to write poems as a means of sorting out our pre-adolescent feelings. If we had a free moment we were instructed to either read a book or write a poem. We also had a poetry newspaper called The Purple Cow. My best friend and I were the editors. In the sixth grade everyone had to recite "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I loved the stirring images painted by the rhythmic words. Finally, my mother an elementary teacher, loved to teach writing and she introduced me to the love of children's poetry books. I am not a poet but those early years of exposure to poetry made me a lifelong lover of words.
Don't be frightened by poetry. Read it to your children during Laptime and in Story Circle. Linger together over the words enjoying the rhythms and rhymes and imagery.
Here are some Poetry books to introduce during National Poetry Month and to enjoy all year long:
Preschool
Random House Book of Mother Goose retold and illustrated by Arnold Lobel (author of the Frog and Toad Books) - 1986. Random House- Whiskers and Rhymes by Arnold Lobel - 1985. Greenwillow.
- Read A-loud Rhymes for the Very Young selected by Jack Prelutsky - 1986. Knopf.
- Dinosaur Dinner (With a Slice of Alligator Pie) by Dennis Lee - 1999. Random House
Kindergarten - Elementary
- Sing a Song of Popcorn, Every Child's Book of Poems a collection of poems by well known poets selected by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, Eva Moore, Mary Michaels White, Jan Carr and illustrated by nine Caldecott Medal artists - 1988 Scholastic
- A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein - 1981. HarperCollins
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein - 1974. Harper and Row
- Block City
by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Ashley Wolf - 1988. Dutton - My Shadow by Rober Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Ted Rand - 1990. Putman
- The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear, illustrated by Jan Brett - 1991. Putnam
- The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Jan Breskin - 1986. Holt.
- Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Ted Rand - 1990. Dutton.
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