Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Reverso Poems

Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

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From Marilyn Singer: A reverso is a poem with two halves. In a reverso, the second half reverses the lines from the first half, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization — and it has to say something completely different from the first half. And they claim the right to say they invented the form. Okay, I’m a smidgen skeptical as you’re telling me in the thousands of years of poetry she is the first to think of this? But, you know what? Who cares […]

Haiku for is for the birds

Whoo-Ku Haiku: A Great Horned Owl Story by Maria Gianferrari and Jonathan D. Voss

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The picture book Whoo-Ku Haiku: A Great Horned Owl Story by Maria Gianferrari and illustrator Jonathan D. Voss is realistic (it talks about how the owl eats, is a bird of prey) but is also age appropriate. Which I would say ranges from a strong age of 5 and up. It can be for older students/children and of course, adults, though the picture book format might turn off the older readers. The way the story is written is in multiple haikus strung together to make […]

Winter, spring, summer and fall, all ya gotta do is read the poems

Poems for Every Season by Bette Westera and David Colmer

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A while back I requested several picture books from an online reader site. One of them was Poems for Every Season by Bette Westera and David Colmer (translator). I was not sure what I would get. I mean I figured poems and seasons (and of course most likely poems about seasons), but I did not have super high expectations. I figured things would be good, but not great. Plus, I just did not want to be disappointed as I had been a lot before (and since) reading […]

When Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky got together and made Bob Odenkirk,

Zilot & Other Important Rhymes by Bob Odenkirk

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If Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky got together and made Bob Odenkirk, the result would be the poetry book, Zilot & Other Important Rhymes. And I got all that from the first three poems.I was thinking when I thought that, what kind of other madness can be next? Trust me, I still was not prepared even knowing what kind of madness those classic writers could make (because I was unfamiliar with Mr. Odenkirk’s particular humor). There are more rhymes, there were really gross shoelaces, there were […]

And Poetry for All

The Red Ear Blows Its Nose: Poems for Children and Others by Robert Schechter

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I enjoy poetry. But recently I have concluded that I need fun and lighter poetry. Yet, I want it to be adult aimed. The Red Ear Blows Its Nose: Poems for Children and Others fits all categories but being only adult geared. However, I do not think a child would mind sharing their poetry book, nor the adult either. These poems were the best of both worlds. Oh sure, maybe they could have been a smidgen more serious, but what was grabbing me was that […]

Finally read this classic children’s book!

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

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CBR BINGO 14: Verse, because it’s a collection of classic children’s poetry My father likes to send me little Brain Teaser quizzes, and recently we had one about matching the covers of classic books to their titles. I told him I got all of them correct, but I had read only 7 out of 10. I jokingly blamed him for my never having read Where the Sidewalk Ends, because for some reason I never owned that book as a child. A few days later, I […]



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