We just received a new shipment of poetry books for our media center thanks to a donation from the UGA Athletic Association and profits from our book fair. Guest readers are coming on Monday from UGA to share them with students. Here’s a list of the books and some possible uses for them in classrooms.

• Hummingbird Nest: a book written as a journal. Great for doing poetry about nature observations
• In the Spin of Things: a book about motion. A great tie-in with science, machines, and motion.
• Bone Poems: poems about dinosaurs.
• Today at the Bluebird Café: poems about birds
• A Poke in the I: concrete poems. There are many unique shape poems in this book. Some are complex. Great to show many ways of doing concrete (shape) poems.
• A Kick in the Head: a book filled with different forms of poetry. It tells about each form in the back. I love the “found” poem, which is where you look for poems in unexpected places (phonebook, street signs, newspaper, magazine, cereal box, etc)
• Earth Magic: poems about the Earth. Great tie-in with Earth Day and writing poems about conservation and the natural world.
• Monarch’s Progress: All poems about butterflies, monarchs, and migration.
• If the Shoe Fits Voices from Cinderella: Poems from many perspectives in Cinderella tales. A great way to write a collection of poems from many different points of view.
• Birds on a Wire: a collection of renga poems (ancient Japanese verse where poets take turns adding verses)
• Winter Eyes: poems about winter
• Hey You! Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things: poems written specifically to different objects. Good for thinking about letter writing in a poem form.
• Wing Nuts Screwy Haiku: not your traditional haiku. These are like haiku but they break the rules. A great way to show that not all poets follow the rules of poetic form.
• Behind the Museum Door: a collection of poems about museums. Good for showing how to write a collection of poems about a particular thing or place.
• A Pocketful of Poems: short poems. Good for showing
• Zig Zag Zoems for Zindergarten: poems that focus on being in Kindergarten. Good for thinking about poems from school experience.
• The Place My Words are Looking For: a collection of poems from many great poets and each poet tells about what poetry is for them. A great way to learn where poets get their inspiration.
• Thanks a Million: poems of thanks written for various people and things. A great way to write “thank you’s” to someone in a poem form (even our guest readers)
• Once Around the Sun: a poem about each month of the year.
• Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico! America’s Sprouting: haiku about food. It tells about each food and where it comes from/how it’s used. A great way to show how to write a poem and also include information writing.
• Frankenstein Takes the Cake: poems about monsters
• Silver Seeds: a book a acrostic poems
• Once Upon a Tomb: a book of epitaphs for gravestones. A great way to write a short poem and create your own dead poet grave yard.
• Monumental Verses: poems about famous landmarks. A great way to tie in social studies and write poems about GPS places/landmarks.
• The Great Frog Race: another collection of nature-inspired poems with great examples of personification and similes.
• Knock on Wood: poems about superstitions
• Thirteen Moons on a Turtle’s Back: poems about a Native American year. Another good tie-in to GPS social studies.
• Read a Rhyme Write a Rhyme: gives examples of poems and then includes a writing activity (your lesson is done!). It gives possibilities of how to start the poem and possible rhyming words to use.
• Hey You C’Mere a Poetry Slam: fun poems for reading aloud.
• Mural on Second Avenue and Other City Poems: poems about the city.
• Come with Me: poems for a journey
• Falling Down the Page: a book of list poems. Gives a great description about how poets write list poems and is filled with fun examples. A great way to have students create a list of words and then add rich description to them to create a poem.
• Honey, I love: the book that Deborah Wiles referred to in her lessons with students.
• A Foot in the Mouth: poems to speak, sing, and shout.
• Jazz: a collection of poems all about jazz. Great to tie in to jazz music and people.
• Flamingos on the Roof: poems about people in an apartment building. Great for writing a collection of poems about what happens inside one building.
• One Leaf Rides the Wind: a Japanese counting book
• City Love: poems about the city
Pieces a Year in Poems and Quilts: poems about the seasons