| |
|
Put Your
Eyes Up Here and Other School Poems
by Kalli Dakos, G. Brian Karas (Illustrator)
Hardcover, 64 pages.
Click here for ordering information
Click on the book cover to see sample poems
|
Synopsis
Ms.
Roys wants her students to pay attention to her-and it’s hard not to. After
all, who could ignore a teacher who wears silly hats and colorful skirts and has
a graveyard for used-up pencils? She even believes in magic and ghosts!
In
this collection of lively, funny, poignant
poems and mini plays, I explore the challenges and triumphs that arise in the
classroom. G. Brian Karas’ funny and whimsical illustrations brings the poetry
to life!
Reviews
Grade
3-5-Like The Goof Who Invented Homework (Dial, 1996) and If You're Not Here,
Please Raise Your Hand (Four Winds, 1990), Dakos's newest collection highlights
incidents taken from her teaching days-here, mostly written in the poetic voice
of a girl named Penny, who, from the first day of school, realizes that her
teacher is unusual. Ms. Roys has a collection of plastic hands, and she takes
the class on an overnight to the museum, where they sleep beside dinosaur
skeletons. She wears unusual earrings, and has a pencil cemetery. On the 100th
day of school, she fills the classroom with 100 helium-filled balloons, each
tied to a pencil, marker, crayon, or pen, and she has a magic wand that her
students may borrow when they need to think of fresh ideas. The verses vary in
length from a few lines to a few pages, and in style from rhyming couplets and
quatrains to unrhymed collective poems written in the form of playlets, in a
sort of verbatim conversation. Some are funny, some clever, some poignant. Small
pencil cartoons decorate almost every page. Students will relate to Dakos's
descriptive recollections of incidents throughout a year in one elementary
classroom, and they will appreciate her understanding of children.
Susan
Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
(School
Library Journal)
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
|
