Schertle, Alice & Petra Mathers. Button Up! Wrinkled Rhymes. Orlando,
Florida. Harcourt Children’s Books. 2009.
ISBN: 978-0-15-205050-4
Alice Schertle’s book, Button Up is a delightful collection of poems which are written
from the point of view of several different articles of clothing. The hat on
top of Alice’s head, the shoes on Jennifer’s feet, and all the clothing in
between have something to say about themselves. These poems and the
illustrations will delight and have great appeal to young audiences. This book
is unbelievably entertaining and well organized. By using short lines and end
rhymes on the majority of the poems, these poems invite the reader’s participation.
“Joshua’s Jammies” is an excellent example of this as is “The Song of Harvey’s
Galoshes.” After a couple of readings, children will be jumping in. The use of
personification to portray the clothing as live, breathing objects adds an
element of fantasy and fun and Schertle almost makes you believe the clothing
is truly alive.
Mathers’ illustrations are simple, watercolor pictures. They are colorful,
bright, and delightful to the eye and children will truly enjoy looking at
them. Each picture is accurately partnered with a poem or phrase of a poem.
These images paired with the language used, give the reader a very good visual
picture of each poem. In “Emily’s Undies,” children will laugh and giggle at
the sight of Emily’s underwear hanging on the clothesline. The poems are not in
a particular order but there is a table of contents in the front of the book.
SPOTLIGHT
POEM:
Joshua’s
JAMMIES
We
are the jammies that Joshua wears,
not jammies for penguins,
not jammies for bears,
not jammies for tigers with knots in their
tails,
not jammies for chickens,
not jammies for whales,
not jammies for elephants going upstairs,
we
are the jammies that Joshua wears.
We don’t fit iguanas,
we’re not for the gnu
we won’t suit the llamas
(they never wear blue)
Hippopotamus
can’t get us over his head.
We’re
JOSHUA’S jammies. We’re going to bed.
For this poem, I would
begin by discussing personification with the students and explaining that
personification is a figurative language used to give nonhuman things human
qualities. I would then read the poem. I would lead the students in figuring
out why this poem is an example of personification. The students and I can
brainstorm together and come up with a list of personification examples and
they could write their own short poem using personification.
Another idea: Most
students will recognize and know what the animals in this poem are (penguins,
bears, tigers, chickens, whales, elephants). Many of the students might not
know what an iguana, a gnu, or a llama is. This would be a good opportunity for
the students to do a little research and find out more about these animals.
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