Poetry Book: Maine: The Way Life Should Be: A Wicked Good Book of Verse by Robert Pottle

Illustrated by Holly Hardwick
paperback
found at Ellsworth Library

2005, Blue Lobster Press, Eastbrook, Maine

64 pgs.

wonderful "pencil" drawings

Goodreads rating:   3.67 - 3 ratings

My rating:  5/Loved it! 

My comments:  The poetr, Robert Pottle, was born in Eastport and now lives in Eastbrook (or at least he did when this book was published.)

Loved the poems and line drawings.  There's also information on each page.  Many are song to familiar tunes:

    "There's  a Racoon in the Trash Can" (Battle Humn of the Republic)

    "Have You Ever Seen a Puffin?" (The More We Get Together)

    "I'm a Little Lobster " Part I - catching; Part II - cooking; Part III - eating

    "Itsy Bitsy Black Flies" (Itsy Bitsy Spider, of course!)

    "Nine Painted Turtles " (One little, two little, three little ...)

    "Busy Beaver's Song" (I've Been Working on the Railroad)

Loons
 Whether hauntingly howling one night on a lake
or laughing one morning in June,
they’re known for the numerous sounds they can make;
a primitive bird is the loon.
 
The common loon’s plumage is all black and whte,
The newborns are brownish and black.
If you’re lucky you may see a marvelous sight;
a loon with a chick on its back.
 
At diving and swimming, they cannot be beat.
At aquatics, they’re simply the best,
but it takes them an hour of flapping their feet
to get from the short to their nest.

Goodreads:  Funny poems, and songs set to familiar tunes, about Maine's abundant wildlife. Interesting animal facts about all of the animals covered are included.

Picture Poetry Book - Days to Celebrate by Lee Bennett Hopkins

A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More
Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn

2005 Greenwillow Books

out of print, available used

112 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.97 - 39 ratints

My rating:  4
Endpapers: Bright yellow 

My comments: Another anthology of poetry for kids by super-poetry-guy Lee Bennett Hopkins.  This one includes a calendar for each month of the year before a handful of pages that represent that month, including birthdays and historical dtes with their information.  An eclectic group of poems, I found MANY that I truly enjoyed.  (See below

Goodreads:  In Days to Celebrate Lee Bennett Hopkins has collected an astounding array of information to show us that each day of the year gives us a reason to celebrate. For every month he has compiled a calendar of birthdays, holidays, historic events, inventions, world records, thrilling firsts, and more.
          And for every month he has selected surprising poems in honor of some of the people and events commemorated in the calendar. There are poems about the seasons and holidays, of course, but there are also poems about a "Flying-Man" (for February 4, Charles Lindbergh's birthday), birds (for April 26, John James Audubon's birthday), windshield wipers (patented November 10), and earmuffs (patented December 21).
          Beloved poets, such as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Christina Rossetti, are joined by new voices in sixty poems that take us on a remarkable journey through a year -- and through the years. Stephen Alcorn's illustrations, based on the style of art found in old almanacs, are airy, whimsical, and thought provoking. They perfectly match the breadth and depth of this volume.
          Brilliantly conceived and elegantly illustrated, Days to Celebrate is a book that pays tribute to the people, events, and poetry that make up our past and will inspire our future.

Groundhog

People shoo me

from their lawn,

scold me,

chase me,

want me gone,

treat me like some kind of pest,

a most unwelcome

garden guest.

Then one day,

for mysterious reasons,

they crown me ---

ME!---

King of Seasons.

Will spring come soon?

Will winter flee?

The world awaits

my royal decree.

            Maria Fleming

Weather

Whether the weather be fine,

Or whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold,

Or whether the weather be hot,

We’ll weather the weather

Whatever he weather

Whether we like it or not.

            Anonymous

                                                                                                                                           

Prayer for the Lunar New Year

This is the day

you grow another year wiser.

This is the day

you forget what you know to be impossible.

The moon loves to play a game.

Play.

Sweep your grudges out,

scatter them to nothing.

Scrub your wishes pure,

wash your heart clear.

Open your windows wide,

let the new year begin.

            Janet S. Wong

            ]

Labor Day

First Monday in September

that’s when we remember

to honor workers who toil long.

Their efforts make our country strong.

We give a gift they all like best;

We give them all a day of rest!

            Marci Ridlon

Freedom!

Harriet Tubman

Auburn, New York, 1861

Before I rode “The Railroad,”

            I didn’t understand.

I thought that tracks were tunneled

            underneath the land.

The Underground Railroad

            runs out of sight.

The last stop is freedom

            if you ride it right.

Good peope gave me food

            and hid me all the way,

until I reached Pennsylvania

            at sunrise one day.

I stared at these black hands

            To make sure I was me.

I felt like I was in heaven.

            At last I was free!

I worked as a cook,

            saved my money

                 and then . . .

            I went down South

            again and . . .again

to lead others to the stations:

            women, children, men.

Yes, I worked and I saved

            and I kept going back.

I never lost a passenger

            or ran my train off the track.

Folks began to call me Moses.

            The though tickled me.

Moses!  There was a conductor

            who set God’s children free.

                        Bobbi Katz

Earth, What Will You Give Me?

Earth what will you give me

In summer,

In summer,

Earth, what will you give me

In summer

Serene?

I’ll give you my fields

Made of lilies,

Of lilies,

I’ll give you my fields

Made of lilies

And green.

And what will you give me

In autumn,

In autumn,

And what will you give me

In autumn

So bold?

I’ll give you my leaves

Made of maple,

Of maple,

I’ll give you my leaves

Made of maple

And gold.

And what will you give me

In winter,

In winter,

And what will you give me

In winter

So light?

I’ll give you my stars

Made of crystal,

Of crystal,

I’ll give you my stars

Made of crystal

And white.

And what will you give me

In springtime,

In springtime,

And what will you give me

In springtime

So new?

I’ll give you my nests

Made of grasses,

Of grasses,

I’ll give you my nests

Made of grasses

And blue.

            Beverly McLoughland

Treasure Words

Words are magic ---

quiet, loud.

Steady, strong

slow, proud.

Whisper, shout ---

let them out ---

hold words close,

toss afar,

see them sparkle ---

each a star.

Thread words on

a silver chain,

let words touch you

warm as rain.

written, read, said, heard ---

delight in, sip on,

treasure words.

           

                        Rebecca Kai Dotlich                                                                                                                               

Pencils

On my desk

In a small brown vase,

A bouquet of tall yellow flowers

Smelling of cedar.

            Beverly McLoughland

Christmas Storytime at the Library

I read three books aloud to preschoolers today, I chose ones with three different animals as protagonists. Then we glued sequins for ornaments, drew garlands with glitter crayons, and topped the pre-cut green construction paper tree with a sticky star.  Very cute, and manageable for little hands.  I had eight books to choose from and the ones I chose were big hits:

Merry Christmas, Merry Crow
by Kathi Appelt
Illustrated by Jon Goodell
2005, Harcourt, Inc.

     "Wind's a blowin'
Sky's a snowin'
     Where's this feathered
               fellow goin'?"

The crow glides through each double-page spread, collecting all sorts of tinsel and trinkets he finds laying around, to decorate a tree for all his flying friends.  Gorgeously illustrated, with no white edges (I love edge-of-page to edge-of-page illustrations), the continuous snowfall and merry Christmas shoppers and carolers make this a happy, fun book to share with kids.
     Goodreads rating:  3.93 - 87 ratings

Stowaway in a Sleigh
Written and illustrated by C. Roger Mader
2016 Houghton Mifflin

"It was the darkest hour of night when Slipper heard strange footsteps in the house."

Well, of course she went to investigate, and discovered Mr. Fuzzy Boots...and crawled into his now-empty cozy red bag. After she was whisked away to the North Pole where she made new friends, Santa made a special trip back to Slippers' house to return her.  My little listener was at first a little distressed when she realized that Slippers might not be able to get home again, but enjoyed the story and the illustrations greatly.  Again the gorgeous illustrations covered each entire double-page spread from edge to edge and accentuated the story superbly.
     Goodreads rating:  4.15 - 161 ratings

Bear Stays Up for Christmas
by Karma Wilson
Illustrated by Jane Chapman
2004, Margaret K. McElderry Books, Simon & Schuster

"The day before Christmas,
snuggled on his floor,
Bear sleeps soundly
with a great big snore."

Bear has such a tough time staying up once his friends awaken him for Christmas...it is time for his "big sleep" after all, but when it comes time for them to doze off on Christmas Eve, he has a wonderful time preparing surprises for them to find in the morning.  A very cute story, again with many double-page spreads.  Three winners today!
     Goodreads:  4.28 - 6,938 ratings



   

PICTURE BOOK - Aunt Olga's Christmas Postcards by Kevin Major

Illustrated by Bruce Roberts

2005, A Groundwood Book, House of Anansi Press, Toronto & Berkeley

Out-of-print

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 3.91 - 22 ratings

My rating: 4.5

Endpapers: Red striped background with collage of antique Christmas postcards

Illustrations:  Facsimiles of oodles and oodles of vintage postcards.  Drawings of Aunt Olga and the little girl look like pen and ink and watercolors.

1^st line/s:  "Great-great Aunt Olga is ninety-five.  She calls herself a nonagenarian!  We all think the world of her."

My comments:  This is a wonderfully special book for me.  It's about Christmas and poetry and aging and familial grandparent-type/child relationship.  Its about memories and art and poems that both rhyme and don't rhyme.  There's quite a bit of text, but not so much that snuggling with a child older than a toddler and a gingerbread cookie wouldn't remedy!

Goodreads:  Anna’s great-aunt Olga has collected Christmas postcards all her life. She’s ninety-five, and many of the cards are very old. The holidays are the perfect time for Aunt Olga to share her postcards and her memories with her favorite niece. Decked out in red, Aunt Olga is ready for fun as she teaches Anna how to write her very own Christmas rhymes. Written with warmth and humor, this lovely story is a perfect starting point for discussions of the “olden days”, as well as a charming introduction to the joys of collecting.

29. Immoral by Brian Freeman

Jonathan Stride #1
listened on Audible, mostly in the car on the drive to Maine
Read by Joe Barrett - did the Minnesota accent okay, female voices not quite so well (but okay)
2005 St. Martin's Minotaur (741 pgs. HC)
2006 Headline (471 pgs.)
Audible 13 hrs. 30 min.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished Wed., May 17, 2017
Goodreads rating: 3.87 - 5262 ratings
My rating:  3.9....
Setting: Duluth MN and Las Vegas

First line/s:  "Darkness was a different thing in the north woods than it was in the city.  He had forgotten."

My comments:  Rating?  Not quite a four.  This was a little slow for me at the beginning, sped up a bit, then slowed down again during a long trial (which I have discovered that I do not enjoy in a book).  There were things to like a lot as well as things to dislike.  The plot twists and turns were huge, and I discovered that I missed some of the major clues at the beginning.  All the loose ends were eventually wrapped up, though in a somewhat weird way.  Setting - Duluth, MN and Las Vegas, NV - both places I have been to more than once, were believable and well written.  Because of the nature of the story, some of the characters weren't as fleshed out as others, which was a setback for me, although minor.  Stride's attraction to and fascination with Serena was difficult to believe and understand.  So, all in all, what do I look for in a good mystery?  A plot line that keeps me guessing.  Check.  Little surprises along the way.  Check.  A setting that is interesting and an integral part of the story.  Check.  Characters that are believable and seem real.  Not quite so much.  Writing.  Freeman strayed a few times from the protagonist's point-of-view, which was a bit disconcerting.  Will I read another in the series?  Sure, this was the first and he's up to seven with two novellas in between.  Bet he's gotten better.  All in all, a good find.

Goodreads synopsis:  In Duluth, Minnesota, a young woman, Rachel Stoner, has gone missing. Cop Jonathan Stride, a sharply focused detective despite the stresses of his troubled personal life, is quick to suspect her stepfather of murder. And yet, he has his doubts. Even for a man accustomed to power, the accused seems remarkably convinced he'll go free. Could he be telling the truth? While Stride endeavours to make sense of the conflicting pieces of evidence, a young woman's body lies half-buried deep in the woods. But if it's not the body of Rachel, where is the missing girl? Is she dead, or is the terrible, unexpected fate that awaits Graeme Stoner one he does not deserve? In this dark, involving mystery, nothing is as it seems, and readers will be gripped to the very last page as the shocking truth gradually emerges.

21. Still Life by Louise Penny

#1 Chief Inspector Armande Gamache
listened on Audible
2005 St. Martin's Press
312 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 4-6-17
Goodreads rating: 3.91 - 63,992 ratings (that's a lot!)
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Three Pines, Quebec, CANADA (just south of Montreal)

First line/s:

My comments:  Dozens of people have told me through the years that this is their favorite mystery series of all of them, and I just HAVE to read at least one.  Just the other day, a coworker got really excited that I was reading this because it's her favorite - she was so excited.  When I asked her "why?" she told me she'd tell me when I finished reading the entire book.  (I'll go see her tomorrow!).  So what is my honest opinion?  The setting was beautifully described, almost like another character.  Characterization was deep and complete.  The mystery was interesting but not entirely surprising.  The process that Gamache goes through and the respect he commands from his people are thoroughly enjoyable.  So why only a "this book was okay" kind of rating?  It was almost too much like a cozy for me.  Which makes me wonder about myself.  Am I looking for blood and guts, thrilling adventure, fast action?  I always thought that it was the deep, intricate puzzle that drew me into totally enjoying a mystery  Well, this book certainly had that.  But it's pacing seemed really slow, just like Three Pines, slow and lazy.  I'm guessing this was intentional on Ms. Penny's part.  And yes, I'll read the next one, to see if I still get the same feeling....

I Think I like this cover better!

Goodreads synopsis:  The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships.
     Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...

20. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

#1 Millenium Trilogy
translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland
13 unabridged cds whilst driving back & forth from work and around town when not in work...
2005 Knopf
 465 pgs.
Very adult Murder Mystery
Finished
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating:5
Setting: Sweden, starts in Stockhilm,but mostly on the coast more up north

First line/s:  "It happened every year, was almost a ritual.  And this was his eighty-second birthday.  When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then  picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morrell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna."

My comments: Oh my, I'm SO glad I read this.  I've seen both versions of the movie - totally enjoying them both - but the book was incredibly different, more so than the usual book-to-movie translations.  Unsettling, yes.  Thought-provoking, yes.  A twisting-turning-terrible mystery to solve, yes.  I loved being able to get into Salander's head, even if it was only a little and only for short amounts of time.  I can't wait to read the next one! (Which I'll probably listen to, because the narrator was wonderful.)

Goodreads synopsis:  Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there's always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

20. The Closers - Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch #11

Audio read by Len Carriou

10 Unabridged cds

2005 Hachette Audio

432 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 3/8/2015

Goodreads rating:  4.00

My rating:  5

My comments:  Harry Bosch returns to the LAPD and is partnered with one of his previous partners, Kiz Rider. The beginning of the story seemed to drag a bit - there was no action because the facts of a 17-year old cold case were being disclosed to Harry and Kiz.  But as they begin to dig into old facts and look into new clues, the story becomes more-than-interesting, with a few twists and turns and a great deal to think about.  Michael Connelly sure seems to know the ins and outs and dirty laundry of a big city police department!

Goodreads book summary:  He walked away from the job three years ago. But Harry Bosch cannot resist the call to join the elite Open/Unsolved Unit. His mission: solve murders whose investigations were flawed, stalled, or abandoned to L.A.'s tides of crime. With some people openly rooting for his failure, Harry catches the case of a teenager dragged off to her death on Oat Mountain, and traces the DNA on the murder weapon to a small-time criminal. But something bigger and darker beckons, and Harry must battle to fit all the pieces together. Shaking cages and rattling ghosts, he will push the rules to the limit--and expose the kind of truth that shatters lives, ends careers, and keeps the dead whispering in the night...

POETRY PICTURE BOOK - Got Geography!

Poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Illustrated by Philip Stanton

2006. Greenwillow Books

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:2.93

My rating: 4

Endpapers Deep brick-cranberry

16 poems (wish there were more!)

full-colored edge-to-edge painting using deep, gorgeous colors

Latitude Longitude Dreams

Magellan moved via stars
Steered his ship by celestial rays.
Columbus sailed on over the edge
Discovering lands and waterways.

They traversed their dreams, set their course
Voyaging over oceans and seas.
Etching earth with invisible designs
Crossing rivers, rivers, ice, and trees.

These lines that slide from pole to pole
Wrapping around the watery girth
Coordinate all of us on this globe
Our home, our ship, or planet earth.

         ~ Drew Lamm and James Hildreth

If I Were the Equator

If I were the equator
I would have an attitude.
I'd boast the most about my no degrees of latitude.
I'd say, though there are other lines who run from east to west
with nearly 25,000 miles I clearly am the best.
My equidistance from the poles,
I'd mention with a laugh,
makes me the one -- the only one -- who

splits the globe in half.
Smack dab
between the Tropics
with the sun high up above,
indeed,
I'd plead,
what on earth could there be
about me not to love?

             -Kathryn Madeline Allen

Horizon
Just as the thin line
in a long division problem
divides the greater number
by the smaller,
horizon
divides earth and sky.

Gozinta, my mother called division,
explaining to me
the mysteries of math.
But earth does not gozinta sky,
held in place by horizon,
else we would all be flung,
unwilling, into the greater stars.

            - Jane Yolen

My comments:  There are some great poems in here (J. Patrick Lewis, Carl Sandburg, David Harrison, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Jane Yolen, Kristine O'Connell George, and Marilyn Singer to name a few) - but it's a very short selection.  The gorgeous, brilliantly-colored illustrations set them all off perfectly.

Goodreads: Geography is more than maps and globes, more than latitude and longitude lines, more than continents, oceans, islands, and your own neighborhood.
          In Got Geography! Lee Bennett Hopkins gathers vivid poems by sixteen poets and Philip Stanton creates glorious artwork to show that geography isn't just about finding your way. It's the jumping-off point for dreams and imagination.
          If you've got geography, you're ready for adventure. . . .