Monday, April 21, 2014

HOPKINS AWARD POETRY



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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