The Ponds (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver


Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them--

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided--
and that one wears an orange blight--
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away--
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled--
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing--
that the light is everything--that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading.  And I do.

New Morning (Monday Poem)

For this new morning and its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For every gift Your goodness sends,
we give You thanks.
 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Magical Eraser (Monday Poem)

by Shel Silverstein


She wouldn't believe
This pencil has
A magical eraser.
She said I was a silly moo,
She said I was a liar too,
She dared me to prove that it was true,
And so what could I do --
I erased her!


from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, 1974, Harper & Row 

Men Who Thought Outside the Boundaries (FAMILY magazine reviews)

Biographies are doorways to the past. The picture book biographies included this month partner superb storytelling with exceptional paintings. The language used in these titles invites young people to explore the lives of memorable men.  And, these books depend on artwork instead of photographs to convey time, place and the nature of the individual.

You can talk with your child(ren) about the relationship between the story and the text – does one support the other? Or perhaps, does information in the story explain what is happening in the pictures? Possibly, do the paintings make the words more clear? In any case, does the story make sense of the individual’s life? And, do you want to discover more about these amazing people who lived on the edge of important change in their world? Enjoy!

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America 

by Carole Boston Weatherford

Illustrations by Jamey Christoph

            When Gordon bought a used camera and taught himself to take pictures, his success took him to Washington, DC. There, his photos for the Farm Security Administration showed the “unfairness of segregation.” Later, he became the “first black staff photographer and writer” at famous LIFE magazine.           

            Christoph’s illustrations are an engaging mix of styles, mostly browns and sepia tones to match a past era. Full-page spreads show Parks as a young boy. Several pages scattered through the story are a selection of images - paintings of his photographs. Weatherford’s lyrical language and occasional poetically aligned text keep readers’ attention focused on this “Renaissance man.”

Parks’ most famous photo, “American Gothic,” is of Ella Watson, “a cleaning lady in the building” where he worked. She is standing in front of an American flag with a broom in one hand and a mop in the other. In this one revealing photo, Parks most clearly discloses the “African American struggle against racism and the contradiction between segregation and freedom.”

An Afterword, Author’s Note and several of Parks’ photos are included as back matter. The final words, referring to Watson, echo down the years, “You don’t have to hear her story to know her prayer.”

Albert Whitman, $16.99

Interest Level: Grades 1-3

Fur, Fins and Feathers: Abraham Dee Bartlett and the Invention of the Modern Zoo by Cassandre Maxwell

            As a tiny child, Abraham loved animals. He dreamed of working with living animals, and constantly read about them. As a young man he continued learning about animal anatomy from his work preparing exhibits at the Museum of Natural History. He became the superintendent of the zoo in mid-1800’s Britain.

            The cut-paper collage and mixed media illustrations provide color, depth and detail. Human and animal faces and bodies are expressively crafted. Text and pictures are matched seamlessly.

            Small stories about several animals and how “Papa” Bartlett cared for them, as a “pioneer in veterinary medicine,” demonstrate his love for the animals. He kept detailed records and prepared appropriate foods. He also built spaces and habitats to house the creatures. Additionally, Bartlett posted signs and explanations. This first labeling of animal exhibits in the zoo named the animals and shared information with visitors.

            A Time-Line, Author’s Note, and a brief bibliography are included at the end. Several notes are scattered across the inside front and back covers. This is an engaging book, and a charming story.

Eerdmans, $17.00

Interest Level: Grades 1-3

The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch 

by Chris Barton

Illustrated by Don Tate

            Although John Roy Lynch ‘s father was Irish, his mother was a slave. This meant John Roy and his brother were also slaves in the mid-1800’s United States. But their father, Pat, died before he could “buy” his family and treat them as free. John Roy and his family were sold. He worked as a house slave, and later as a cotton plantation slave. During the Civil War, when John Roy was sixteen years old, he bought a boat ride to freedom by selling a chicken to a Yankee soldier. He worked at several jobs until the war’s end.

            Although parts of this story are heavy with “harsh realities,” the mixed media, ink and gouache paintings are filled with light. In spite of angry faces, a battle scene, and slave being whipped, Lynch’s life is ultimately hopeful. He finds work in a photography studio. This unexpectedly offers him the chance to go to class by watching and listening from across the alley. He can hear the public school teacher through the windows.

            Lynch buys property, gets involved in the Republican club, and makes speeches. Visiting the new Mississippi governor, he recommends names to fill positions in the new state government. And gets appointed himself as a justice of the peace!

            Months later he is elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, becoming the Speaker of the House at age 25 years. Shortly after that he is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He makes a passionate speech in support of the Civil Rights Bill. This bill becomes law! (Unfortunately, with no “means for enforcement.”)

            This is an amazing story, with a strong storyline and carefully researched, well-matched illustrations. Back matter includes: an Historical Note, a Timeline, an Author’s Note, an Illustrator’s Note, a list For Further Reading, and maps of the Reconstructed U.S, 1870.

Eerdmans, $17.00

Interest Level: Grades 2-3

Additional Fascinating Biographies:

The Streak: How Joe DiMaggio Became America’s Hero 

by Barb Rosenstock

Illustrated by Terry Widener

Calkins Creek, $16.95

Interest Level: Grades 1-3

 

The Cosmo Biography of Sun Ra 

by Chris Raschka

Candlewick Press, $15.99

Interest Level: Grades 2-3

Hello, I’m Johnny Cash 

by G. Neri

Illustrated by A.G. Ford

Candlewick Press, $16.99

Interest Level: Grades 2-3

Dancing Pants (Monday Poem)

by Shel Silverstein


And now for the Dancing Pants,
Doing their fabulous dance.
From the seat to the pleat
They will bounce to the beat,
With no legs inside them
And no feet beneath.
They'll whirl, and twirl, and jiggle and prance,
So just start the music
And give them a chance --
Let's have a big hand for the wonderful, marvelous,
Super sensational, utterly fabulous,
Talented Dancing Pants!



from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, 1974, Harper & Row 

TALK (Monday Poem)

by Terrance Hayes

like a nigger is what my white friend, M,
asked me, the two of us alone and shirtless
in the locker room, the bones beneath my skin

jutting like the prow of a small boat at sea,
the bones beneath his emitting a heat
that turned his chest red and if you're thinking

my knuckles knocked a few times
against his jaw or my fingers knotted
at his throat, you're wrong because I pretended

I didn't hear him, and when he didn't ask it again,
we slipped into our middle school uniforms
since it was November, the beginning

of basketball season, and jogged out
onto the court to play together
in that vision all Americans wish for

their children, and the point is we slipped
into our uniform harmony, and spit out Go Team!,
our hands stacked on and beneath the hands

of our teammates and that was as close
as I have come to passing for one
of the members of The Dream, my white friend

thinking I was so far from that word
that he could say it to me, which I guess
he could since I didn't let him taste the salt

and iron in the blood, I didn't teach him
what it's like to squint through a black eye,
and if I had I wonder if he would have grown

up to be the kind of white man who believes
all blacks are thugs or if he would have learned
to bite his tongue or let his belly be filled

by shame, but more importantly, would I be
the kind of black man who believes silence
is worth more than talk or that it can be

a kind of grace, though I'm not sure
that's the kind of black man I've become,
and in any case, M, wherever you are,

I'd just like to say I heard it, but let it go
because I was afraid to lose our friendship
or afraid we'd lose the game -- which we did anyway.


from Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation, edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer & Lynn Melnick, 2015, Viking