I Invited a Dragon to Dinner and Other Poems to Make You Laugh Out Loud

I Invited a Dragon to Dinner and Other Poems to Make You Laugh Out Loud illustrated by Chris L DeMarest is a great picture book of collected poems written by people who were contestants in a nationwide contest to find the best new writers of verse for children. These poems, I thought were funny, and I think that students would too. The collection of poems is geared towards children ages 3-7 but I think that older students could read them too and get something of meaning out of them. I think that these poems could be read in a classroom as a read aloud, when discussing poetry or different kinds of writing, or even when trying to show reading for meaning to students.
One poem I really enjoyed was entitled “Time Out” by Wendi Silvano.

The shoe I hit my sister with was rubbery and soft.
And the chewed-up crackers on the floor went spraying when I coughed.
I know t he couch is smelly, but that’s just the way with trout.
Could someone please explain to me… why am I in time out?
There’s good reason why the kitchen wall is splattered with red paint.
And why the blender’s broken…I cant always be a saint.
And if you’ll let me I’ll explain what this hole is all about.
But could someone please explain to me… why am I in time out?
I did put glue in Father’s show, but try to understand.
The project I was working on was something truly grand.
And midnight’s not so bad an hour to scream and yell and shout.
Could someone please explain to me…why am I in time out/
So I shared Mom’s hairbrush with the dog. Isn't sharing good?
And I cut Dads tie down to his size just as any good kid would.
I try to be the best I can, but it never does work out.
Could someone PLEASE explain to me…why am I in time out?

I think all of the poems throughout this book are well written and really good. I think that they could be read in a class to also help explain things to kids, for example maybe discuss why the things this kid did throughout this poem caused him to be in time out.
I enjoyed the pictures drawn throughout the book because they help explain the poems in more detail in a visual way and I think that helps kids learn and get more meaning out of their reading.

Through Our Eyes Poems and Pictures about Growing Up

Through Our Eyes Poems and Pictures about Growing Up is a book of selected poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and photographs taken by Jeffrey Dunn. I really enjoyed reading this poetry picture book because it shows a lot of insight into what children think and what happens with them growing up. The poems are about children's thoughts, hopes, observations, and dreams. They show different backgrounds children have while growing up. I really enjoyed reading the different poems because it made me think of things I thought or that I went through growing up that were either different or similar to things discussed in the poems. I also really enjoyed the illustrations because they were photographs of children that helped bring out meaning in each of the poems.

One poem I really enjoyed reading is "The New Kid on the Block" by Jack Prelutsky:

There's a new kid on the block,
and boy, that kid is tough,
that new kid punches hard,
that new kid plays real rough,
that new kid's big and strong,
with muscles everywhere,
that new kid tweaked my arm,
that new kid pulled my hair.
That new kid likes to fight,
and picks on all the guys,
that new kid scares me some,
(that new kid's twice my size),
that new kid stomped my toes,
that new kid swiped my ball,
that new kid's really bad,
I don't care for her at all.

I thought this poem was very descriptive and that student that wrote it did a great job. It made me think of when I was growing up and a new kid would come to school, or even when I had to be the new kid and how I felt towards the new kid or towards others when I was the new kid. I think this book would be great to share in a classroom when discussing different types of writing, a poetry unit, and even just as a read aloud!

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars by Betsy Franco and illustrated by Jessie Hartland is a fun book of poems that can be read in any classroom and at home. The poems throughout the book are geared towards children ages 7 - 9. They are poems about school that have two voices being read. I think these poems are great because they show different ways to read poems, with two voices. This means that these poems are meant to be read aloud, which I think would make a good topic of discussion in a classroom. By reading these poems in class would bring up other topics, as well as different interpretations and perspectives that students get while the poems are being read aloud and they are listening or if they are the ones reading them. I thought that the illustrations and color used throughout the poems were wonderful. They are drawn in a way that look like a little kid may have drawn them. The pages also use conversation bubbles which I thought helped link the text to the pictures. I really liked this book of poems and I think that other people would too and that students would enjoy reading it in the classroom as well as at home with the family.

What A Day It Was At School

What A Day It Was At School! by Jack Prelutsky is a fun picture book with great illustrations by Doug Cushman. Each page of the book is a different poem about things that happen, may happen, or thoughts students may have throughout ones day at school. These poems are titled: My Backpack Weighs a Thousand Pounds, I tried to Do My Homework, We're Shaking Maracas, We Had a Field trip Yesterday, I Wish I'd Studied Harder, A Classmate Named Tim, I Made a Noise This Morning, It's Library Time, In the Cafeteria, I know How to Add, A Man Named Mister Hoobybatch, I'm off to the Infirmary, I'm Learning Our History, I Drew a Yellow Unicorn, Show-and-Tell, Teacher's Pet, and I have to Write a Poem for Class. I really enjoyed reading through each poem throughout the book. The poems reminded me of when I was in school and things that went through my day. I think that the pictures throughout the books helped explain the poems well. They were very detailed and showed a lot of bright color on each day. I thought they did a great job describing or showing an image of the poem. I think that students would like to read this and that teachers would like to read this in their classroom because it would show how they can relate to what they read.

Love That Dog

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is a fun novel to read. It is written as a journal entry of a student named Jack. I thought it was a great book; you can tell that he is writing responses from comments from his teacher, Miss Stretchberry, throughout the story. Jack writes his entries so you can get a feel of what the teach writes. I think this is a good book to have students read because through his journal entries you can see that poems do not have to rhyme they can be just simple words written or typed on a page. This story shows Jack getting more and more confident in his writing throughout the story. I really enjoyed reading this quick read and feel that students would like to read it too. I think they could learn a lot from reading it about their writing, reading, or even observation of others writings.

Year of Impossible Goodbyes

Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi is a good novel to read. I thought it was a very moving book that helps us understand one perspective of the experiences that occurred during the end of WWII. I thought it was very good to read this book as a paired text with Far From the Bamboo Grove. Reading both books together helped us see that there are always different perspectives of things. On the one side we had Japanese hiding from Koreans and thinking they were bad, but somewhat good at the same time, while in the other was about a Korean family and how much they disliked the Japanese. These two books help us see that not everyone that is a certain ethnicity is like people who we see in the news, for example, of that same ethnicity. I think it would be great to do these in a paired text, or books like it in a classroom. I think these two books are very effective to showing different points of view of a serious topic like war. I think these books could be related to current events and would be a great learning experience for students when talking about such serious and sensitive topics.

How Do You Wokka-Wokka?

How Do You Wokka-Wokka? is by Elizabeth Bluemle and illustrated by Randy Cecil. This new picture book is geared towards children ages 3-5, but I think that older students would like this story too. This is a fun story that is about a certain movement called a 'wokka-wokka'. I really like this story book because it shows that there are multiple ways to do different things; in this case it is involving the wokka-wokka and showing how people do it differently. The cover of this story is very appealing because the title is written in what could be paint or chalk on a sidewalk with children playing outside. The inside cover helps you wonder what it is all about. It says,

"Some days you wake up and you just gotta wokka. Wokka what? Wokka-wokka! It's about dance. It's about movement. It's about shimmy-shakin' be-boppin' and more!
Its about gathering the neighbors and joining the party. Come on!"

The text in this story is all over the page, wrapped around the illustrations of children moving around, doing the wokka-wokka. This book would be great to read to early readers as well as any child really, when discussing different movements or just a fun read-aloud! I think this book could be read in the classroom or even at home to the children. I really enjoyed reading this book, and I know kids will love it too!

...By taking another look through the story, after my friend pointed it out, it seems as though all of the characters in this story are of the same skin color. I feel like maybe it is a suburb of New York or something because of the stairs in front of each building and them close together, no yards, and other things displayed throughout the story. I am unsure of what it means; I do not think that the skin color displayed in this story negative, I think it is positive, energetic and fun. This book shows kids laughing and playing like all kids do, no matter the skin color. This is just an observation I have noticed but I do not think it really means anything. I do not know what other readers think of this though.