Poetry Picture Book - Clackety Track: Poems about Trains by Skila Brown

Illustrated by James Cristoph

2019 Candlewick Press

HC $16.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.98 - 44 ratings

My rating:  4
Endpapers:  freight train silhouettes, blue on blue



Steam Engine
Biggest beast you've ever seen
Gobbling up a coal cuisine.
One hundred tons of steel machine.
Belching out a steam smoke screen.

My comments: A book for train enthusiasts, this collections includes 13 poems and two pages of interesting train facts - all notated on a different freight car (clever)!  Gentle, easily accessible poems with a really great word thrown in here and there....delightful!

Goodreads:  Queue up for a whistle-stop tour of trains of all kinds, narrated in lively verse and featuring dynamic retro artwork.

Rows of grooves, cables, and bars.
Graffiti rockin' out the cars.
A badge of rust. A proud oil stain.
There's nothin' plain about a train.

Trains of all shapes and sizes are coming down the track -- bullet train, sleeper train, underground train, zoo train, and more. All aboard! Skila Brown's first-class poems, as varied as the trains themselves, reflect the excitement of train travel, while Jamey Christoph's vintage-style illustrations provide a wealth of authentic detail to pore over

PICTURE BOOK - Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China by Deborah Noyes

Illustrated by Sophie Blackall

2007, Candlewick Press

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.79 - 127 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers:   Solid red

1^st line/s:  "In my father's kingdom there are many splendors.  Bells and drums and conchs sound in the city streets.  All day long, ladies with careful eyebrows crisscross palace courtyards.  Warlords and courtiers come and go in gleaming carriages."

My comments:  Beautiful writing, beautiful illustrations.  Lots of insight into a princess marrying a king, but lots of sadness as well, as the young girl is preparing to leave her father's kingdom - forever - and travel a great distance to marry the king of another kingdom.  Based on a supposed true story that took place between 100 and 500 AD, this story gives a picture of ancient China and gives one lots to think about.  The author's note at the end gives fascinating information about the background as well as history about the Silk Road.

Goodreads:   An enchanting tale of hidden beauty and fierce courage, retold in the style of T’ang Dynasty poetry and illustrated with charm and grace
          A young Chinese princess is sent from her father’s kingdom to marry the king of a far-off land. She must leave behind her home of splendors: sour plums and pink peach petals and — most precious and secret of all — the small silkworm. She begs her father to let her stay, but he insists that she go and fulfill her destiny as the queen of Khotan. Beautifully told and arrestingly illustrated, here is a coming-of-age tale of a brave young princess whose clever plan will go on to live in legend — and will ensure that her cherished home is with her always

POETRY - Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth

Illustrated by Ekua Holmes

2017, Candlewick Press
I owned - but have donated it to Bosler, who does not

$16.99

56 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.37 - 920 ratings

My rating: 5!!!

Endpapers: Mottled purple

Illustrations are mixed media collage in GLORIOUS colors!

My comments:  Oh my goodness, what a SPLENDID book of poetry!  Three poets:  Alexander, Colderley, and Wentworth chose famous poets that young people would recognize and wrote poems in their styles AND celebrating them.  They are glorious, as are the incredible illustrations.  What a gorgeous book!  A few of my favorite poems follow:

How Billy Collins Writes a Poem

celebrating Billy Collins

When you first wake up, notice

how your mother's voice, calling

you to breakfast, sound like a fire alarm.

Watch the steam rising off your oatmeal

like tiny clouds and guess where it goes.

Pay attention to the smallest things:

a fly buzzing near the kitchen window,

bright rocks in the driveway,

the handful of marbles in your pocket --

the sound they make when you walk.

Imagine that the leaves spinning in the wind

on the walk to school are alien ships

and that barking dogs belong to a prince.

At night, when the stars seem close

reach up and grab some.

Our lives are made from these things,

and when you describe them,

you discover magic.  It's the way

your pen becomes a wand in your hand,

and this may be the only thing you need to know.

                            -Marjory Wentworth

(Loving) The World and Everything In It

celebrating Mary Oliver

Each day I walk out

onto the damp grass

before the sun has spoken,

because I love the world

and the miracle of morning.

I love to stand beside

the old oak trees

beneath a symphony 

of birdsong and listen

to every perfect note

while the wind passes

around me like a warm sea.  

Sometimes a feather

drifts down into my hands;

I hold it and imagine flying.

                                -Marjory Wentworth

No Idle Days

celebrating William Carlos Williams

the hurried days

of two lives

crammed into one

a modest man

in Rutherford

New Jersey

a doctor poet

making house calls

and noticing

the stuff

of ordinary moments

scribbling on prescription blanks

typing

in spare minutes

between patients

a trendsetter

and a rule breaker

crafting

a new American voice

for people who carry their plums

in brown 

paper bags

                       --Chris Colderley

How to Write a Poem

celebrating Naomi Shihab Nye

Hush.

Grab a pencil

some paper

spunk.

Let loose your heart --

raise your voice.

What if I have many voices?

Let them dance together

twist and turn

like best friends

in a maze

till you find

your way

to that one true word

(or two).

            --Kwame Alexander

Goodreads:  Out of gratitude for the poet's art form, Newbery Award winning author and poet Kwame Alexander, along with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, present original poems that pay homage to twenty famed poets who have made the authors' hearts sing and their minds wonder.

PICTURE BOOK - In the Past by David Elliott

From Trilobites to Dinosaurs to Mammoths in More Than 500 Million Years
Illustrated by Matthew Trueman

2018, Candlewick Press

17.99 HC

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.75 - 20 ratings

My rating:5 all the way!

Endpapers: pale green solid

Illustrations are edge-of-page to edge-of-page, big, bold and wonderful, created with mixed media.

My comments:  What a superb book!!! I'm not disappointed that all the text is poetry, I'm giddy with happiness about it.  This book is many things....a timeline through the past (going waaaaay back), clever poetry of many styles, wonderfully informative and interesting facts, and it's gorgeous to look at!  What a great book for kids who like dinosaurs.  Highly recommended.

Trilobite (from the Cambrian Period; 544 - 505 million years ago)

So many of you.

So long ago.

So much above you.

Little below.

Now you lie hidden

deep in a clock,

uncountable ticks

silenced by rock

Brachytrachelopan (from the Jurassic Period; 208 - 144 million years ago)

Your neck too short!

Your tail too long!

Somehow you're

put together wrong.

And that name!

You should renounce it.

It takes a genius

to pronounce it.

Quetzalcoatlus (Cretaceous Period 144 - 65 million years ago)

Unrepentant.

Carnivore.

Largest of all

flying things.

How the timid

must have trembled

in the shadow

of your wings.

Titanoboa and Carbonemys (Paleogene Period; 60 - 24 million years ago)

The largest snake

that's lived on Earth,

you weighed a ton

(a three-foot girth),

your length not short

or marvelous.

And then there is Carbonemys,

with whom you shared a habitat.

It frightens me to think of that.

Goodreads:  Return to the prehistoric era and discover a host of creatures both novel and familiar, from the mysterious trilobite to the famed T. rex.
          Care to meet a dunkleosteus? An apatosaurus? How about the dragonflyesque meganaura? In a collection that's organized chronologically by epoch and is sure to intrigue everyone from armchair dino enthusiasts to budding paleontologists, David Elliott and Matthew Trueman illuminate some of the most fascinating creatures ever to evolve on the earth. Combining poems both enlightening and artful with illustrations perfect for poring over, this volume ensures fascinating trips back to a time as enthralling and variable as any in our planet's evolutionary history. 

PICTURE BOOK - Books! Books! Books! Explore the Amazing Collection of the British Library by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom

Illustrated by Manning & Granstrom

2017, Candlewick Press

HC $17.99

48 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.12 - 82 ratings

My rating: 4, interesting and cool

Endpapers: Red

Lots to read and look at!

1^st line/s::  "Welcome to the greatest library in the world!  We're going to take you on an amazing tour of its treasures -- including some that are so rare thay are kept under lock and key!"

My comments:  An easy, interesting nonfiction book for early-middle grades that tells of many of the British Library's major holdings from the earliest ones on to the present.  Interesting and relevant, including many well-known and a few lesser known British authors and writings. Included are early Christian writings, Beowulf, the Magna Carta, Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Dickens, Doyle....with a whole lot in between.

Goodreads:  A tiny prayer book carried by a queen to her execution. An atlas so huge that it takes six people to lift it. A handmade gospel hidden in a saint's coffin, and Shakespearean folios so precious they are kept in a bombproof storeroom. From stories of man-eating monsters, brave knights, and wicked witches to tales of lost children, magical creatures, haunted moors, and flying machines, award-winning duo Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom bring to life the extraordinary history of the book through the treasures of one of the greatest libraries in the world: the British Library. 

26. Princess Cora and the Crocodile by Laura Amy Schlitz

Illustrated by Brian Floca
Listened on Audible AND read the BOOK
2017 Candlewick Press
74 pgs.
Mid Grades Fairy Tale
Finished  3/21/18
Goodreads rating:  4.01 - 1029 ratings
My rating:  4

First line/s: When Princess Cora was born, her mother and father thought she was as perfect as a snowflake."

My comments:  I purchased this book through Audible for a ridiculously low price - can't remember how low, but like maybe 99-cents.  Because I've loved everything I've read by Laura Amy Schitz previously, I couldn't pass it up.  Oh, does Davina Porter read this beautifully!  She has the easiest-to-understand British accent and is just a joy to spend time with.  The story is adorable, but I really think that I need to see the illustrations - that's the only problem with an audio book that has illustrations.  So I won't make an actual review of this until I have sat down with the book itself and take in the pictures.  5/5 I have done that now.  They've really fun.

Goodreads synopsis: A Newbery Medalist and a Caldecott Medalist join forces to give an overscheduled princess a day off and a wicked crocodile a day "on." 
Princess Cora is sick of boring lessons. She's sick of running in circles around the dungeon gym. She's sick, sick, sick of taking three baths a day. And her parents won't let her have a dog. But when she writes to her fairy godmother for help, she doesn't expect help to come in the form of a crocodile, a crocodile who does not behave properly.