Poetry Friday: The Blacker the Berry

Title:  The Blacker the Berry 

Author:  Joyce Carol Thomas 

Illustrator: Floyd Cooper 

Target Ages:  3 and up 

Awards: Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrators, Coretta Scott King Award for Authors (nominated), ALA Notable Children’s Book 

Genre:  Poetry Picture Book 

Publisher Summary: 
Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of black beautifully. 

Poem Samples: 
“What Shade Is Human?"
 At breakfast

I pour milk all over my bowl of berries

And Grandpa says,

“It's the milk of kindness

that makes us human.”

“Yes, Papa," I answer,

and he continues:

"White milk

Chocolate milk

Sweet milk

Mother’s milk.”

I nod between bites of berries

because

My mother long ago

When she nursed me my first milk

Said, “You are beautiful,”

And I heard her.

“The Blacker the Berry"
 “The blacker the berry

the sweeter the juice.”

I am midnight and berries

I call the silver stars at dusk

By moonrise they appear

And we turn berries into nectar

Because I am dark the moon and stars

shine brighter

Because berries are dark the juice is sweeter

Day couldn’t dawn without the night

Colors, without black, couldn’t sparkle

quite as bright

“The blacker the berry

the sweeter the juice”

I am midnight and berries 

Evaluation:  
The poems have a couple significant connections.  

First, the berry metaphor is used throughout in creative and poignant ways.   For instance, one speaker is her “great-grandma’s raspberry color,” her “grandma’s blackberry cheeks,” and her “mama’s mulberry mouth.”  Another child refers to himself as “raspberry black” because he is part Native Indian and part African American.  Each use of color—shades of dark—reflects the child’s heritage and instills confidence.

Second, the poems reflect the diversity within the African-American community.  Colors range from deep black like coffee berries to “light as snowberries in fall.”  Many of the children are mixed race.  Each child recognizes his or her uniqueness and beauty.   

Finally,  the poems instill pride in children (and adults) of color.  In “Snowberries,” the child  speaker wants to be “black as midnight” so she isn’t made fun of for her “snowy skin.”  She comes to realized that if she bleeds “the one drop of blood” she is just as “Black” as a dark skinned person.  Another child declares she “feels absolutely fabulous to be this brown.”  In the final poem, it says: “Each color is rich in its own right/We come in all shades.”

Floyd Cooper’s illustrations enrich the diversity, beauty, and pride that exude from each poem.  Each two-page spread shows the sparkle, radiance, and musing of the children as they contemplate their heritage and individuality.  

The Blacker the Berry is a stunning collection of poems and art.  

This post is part of the Poetry Friday link up hosted by My Juicy Little Universe.

 

Yellow Elephant: A Bright Bestiary (Julie Larios)

Title:  Yellow Elephant: A Bright Bestiary

Author: Julie Larios

Illustrator:  Julie Paschkis

Target Ages:  2-7

Genre:  Picture Book Poetry Collection

Publisher Summary: 

Have you ever seen a yellow elephant, glowing in the jungle sun?

Have you seen a green frog—splash!—turn blue?

Or a red donkey throw a red-hot tantrum?

In this bright bestiary, poet Julie Larios and painter Julie Paschkis color a menagerie of animals in brilliantly unexpected hues—encouraging us to see the familiar in surprising ways. 

Poem Sample:

“Brown Mouse”

Little brown clown,

looking for crumbs,

comes sneaking, sniffing, skittering

all around—sounds

like she jitterbugging

on tinfoil, sharp toenails

clicking and clacking

through the house.

She’s in a hurry

that’s for sure,

this brown mouse.

Evaluation:

This collection of 14 colorful poems are sure to surprise and delight young children.  The lyrical words capture the real and wonder of the animals while the vibrant pictures illustrate the fantastic and unexpected.  

Yellow Elephant: A Bright Bestiary is a wonderful poetic experience.  I recommend it  for preschool and primary classrooms. 

Activities and Extension Ideas for Lesson Plans:

• Colors:  Practice or review colors and color words. 
• Poetry:  Using a favorite color and animals, children can write their own creative sentence or short poem.
• Sound Devices:  Identify and discuss sound devices like rhyme and alliteration.
• Grouping:  Discuss ways to put the animals in groups like ones the students have seen in real life or touched.  Other groups can be based on type of animal (reptile, mammal, etc.) or where it lives (trees, water, house). 
• Art:  Create one or more animals using unexpected colors, patterns, or textures.
• Fantasy vs. Reality:  Use the pictures as a spring board to discuss the difference between fantasy and reality.  Which parts are realistic?  Which are imaginative?  For older students, ask them to guess why the illustrator used some of the imaginative elements. 

Visit Live Your Poem for more Poetry Friday fun!

Also visit Suzanne Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Book Round Up.  

Imaginary Menagerie (Julie Larios)

Title:  Imaginary Menagerie

Author: Julie Larios

Illustrator:  Julie Paschkis

Target Ages:  5-10

Genre:  Poetry Picture Book

Publisher Summary: 

Who is half gallop, half walk?

Who can turn you to stone with one look?

Whose voice do you hear in the splash on the shore?

         

Centaurs, mermaids, and other curious creatures populate these wondrous poems and paintings, inspired by a mythological world full of imagination and mystery.

Sample Poem:

“Phoenix”

Rising

from the ashes of her nest,

away she flies.

She is a bird that never dies.

Singer

and shape-changer,

she is a strange one:

Now a crane, now a drake,

now a turtle, now a snake,

now a swallow, now a swan—

she burns and is reborn.

And then she’s gone.

Evaluation:

This collection of poems is full of imagination and wonder.  Poet Julie Larios introduces young readers to well-known mythological creatures as well as several lesser-known ones.  The creatures included are dragons, mermaids, firebirds, centaurs, trolls, cockatrices, hobgoblins, sea serpents, thunderbirds, sphinxes, will o’ the wisps, gargoyles, nagas, and phoenixes.

Come for the poems, stay for Julie Paschkis’ stunning illustrations.  Using rich colors and exquisite detail, each one captures the beauty and essence of the highlighted creature(s) and builds on the descriptions in the poems.

Larios includes some further explanation of each creature in the author’s notes.   

Imaginary Menagerie is a fantastic introduction to many of the imaginary creatures mentioned in fairy tales, myths, legends, folk tales, and other literature. 

Activities and Extension Ideas for Lesson Plans:

• Art:  Students can use the descriptions of each creature to draw, paint, or otherwise create what they think it looks like.  
• Literature:  Read stories that include these mythical creatures.  For instance, Greek mythology often mentions centaurs (such as Chiron). In addition, there are several mermaid books like Sukey and the Mermaid and The Mermaid and the Shoe.
• Recitation:  Assign individuals or groups of students a poem to memorize.  Encourage student to dress up, to use props, and to show emotion as they recite it from memory.
• Research:  Older students can pick a creature to research.  Then, present the information to the class in a PowerPoint or poster board.
• Writing Idea #1:  Write a story about one or more mythical creature. 
• Writing Idea #2:  Create an original imaginary creature which includes a description, abilities, and special powers.  Then, write an origin story for it.
• Writing Idea #3: Rewrite a well-known story or myth with one or more mythical creatures.

For more Poetry Friday selections, head over to Reading to the Core and the Link Up.

A Place to Start a Family (David L. Harrison)

Title:  A Place to Start a Family

Author:  David L. Harrison

Illustrator:  Giles Laroche

Target Ages:  5-10

Genre:  Non-Fiction Poetry

Publisher Summary:

Many animals build in order to find a mate, lay eggs, give birth, and protect their babies.  The types of structures they create are often extraordinary.  From the prairie dog to the pufferfish and from the termite to the stork, discover how and why many animals build.

Poem Samples (Click for Larger View):

Evaluation: 

Earlier this year, I reviewed another Harrison-Laroche collaboration Now You See Them, Now You Don't.  Like the previous book, this one deserves to be in every library, classroom, and home.  

The poems are insightful. Harrison features many animals and attributes I was not previously familiar with, like the only snake that builds a nest and the spider that feeds its young for weeks after birth.  Young and old will be engaged and fascinated with the creatures’ preparation for and care of their babies. 

The poems are entertaining.  For instance, “Red Ovenbird” has short stanzas with repetition. Similarly, “Termite” uses repetition and predictive phrasing.  Both are perfect for choral reading.  Others connect animals to human behaviors like the animals that kiss and play king of the hill or the animals that keep their babies safe and dry. 

Laroche’s illustrations are stunning and brilliant.  I love the textures, the contrasts,  the colors.  Each sight feels like a peek into the secret lives of these creatures with all its vividness and beauty. 

Whether you come for the illustrations and stay for the poetry or come for the poetry and stay for the illustrations, you are going to love both in A Place to Start a Family.

Ideas for Extension Activities at Home or Lesson Plans for Teachers:

• Science:  Use poems in a unit related to mammals, fish, insects, reptiles, or baby animals. 
• Poetry vs. Prose: Each creature is featured in a short prose paragraph at the end book.  Both the prose paragraph and the poetry include many of the same facts, but one uses figurative elements and experiences the facts imaginatively.  Put the prose and the poetry side by side and compare them to teach the difference of these two writing forms.
• Poetry:  Using a short paragraph of information from science or other subject area, write poems that imaginatively experience the facts. 
• Categorization:  Break the animals into groups like type (mammal, fish), location (air, water, underground), type of home, caring for young, and so forth.  To extend to math, create one or more charts of information.
• Comparison:  Pick two creatures to compare and contrast.  How are they similar?  Different?
• Language:  Identify rhyming words and alliteration.  For younger children, use them as a spring board for reading instruction.  For instance, list the words that rhyme in the poem. (“European Paper Wasp” is a good poem for this exercise.)  Point out similarities in spelling and sound.  Write out new words that rhyme.  Allow early readers to decipher them. 

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