hotTEAs of Children’s Poetry: Marilyn Singer

April 19, 2016September 25, 2017 ~ jama ~ 6 Comments

Marilyn Singer is the author of more than 100 books in many genres, but poetry is her favorite thing to write. Winner of the 2015 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry, she co-hosts the ALA Poetry Blast at the annual conference. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and Washington, CT with her husband and pets. (Photo by Steve Aronson)

☕ CUPPA OF CHOICE: Tea, tea, tea, especially Yunnan and various oolongs. I love the fact that I can take my time and drink a cup slowly, while chatting, watching TV, reading, writing, or just ruminating.

☕ HOT OFF THE PRESSES: My most recent book is Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths (Dial, 2016), illustrated by Josee Masse. Coming this fall are several books that mention or deal with food: Miss Muffet, Or What Came After (Clarion, September 2016), illustrated by David Litchfield; and What’s an Apple? and What’s a Banana? (Abrams, August 2016), illustrated by Greg Pizzoli.

☕ FAVE FOODIE CHILDREN’S BOOK: I adored Sydney Taylor’s All-of-A-Kind Family books, in part because of the yummy descriptions of Jewish food in them: pickles, sweet potatoes, hot chick peas, chicken soup, rye bread, etc. Here’s a blog that delves into the food in the series: http://www.suannelaqueur.com/great-food-great-books-all-kind-family/

☕ Visit Marilyn Singer’s Official Website.

☕☕ JUST ONE MORE SIP: A poem from The Superheroes Employment Agency (Clarion, 2012), illustrated by Noah Z. Jones!

WEATHERGIRL (AKA CYCLONE)

From up in space to down in Hades,

there are villains who are ladies.

They wear white gloves and fancy hats.

They like to knit. They’re fond of cats.

They’re always planning something sinister

against a monarch or prime minister

over cake and cups of tea.

But then they have to deal with me,

a welcome guest, one of their ilk,

spooning sugar, pouring milk,

until my powers spoil their plot.

I raise a storm in their teapot.

Before they even utter, “Darn,”

I wrap them tightly in their yarn.

Then, whoosh, I blow each one away,

still sopping wet from their Earl Grey.

☕☕☕ CAN’T GET ENOUGH: Marilyn is the April Spotlight Author at Today’s Little Ditty. Read her wonderful interview with Michelle Barnes and then take this month’s challenge by writing your own poem(s).

☕☕☕☕ STILL THIRSTY: Marilyn is also Chicago Public Library’s Author of the Month. Enjoy this short video where she explains what a reverso is and reads a poem from Echo Echo. There’s also a written interview at the CPL site.

☕☕☕☕☕ JUST ONE LAST SIP FOR THE ROAD: Check out Marilyn’s post about writing reverso poetry at Brightly!

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hotTEAs of Children’s Poetry: Joyce Sidman

April 5, 2016September 25, 2017 ~ jama ~ 12 Comments

Joyce Sidman, winner of a Newbery Honor and the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children’s Poetry, lives in Minnesota, where she greets the changing seasons every day with her irrepressible dog Watson. She loves poetry, chocolate, and using her macro lens to capture tiny moments of beauty. (Pictured here with her favorite thistle mug from Crail, Scotland)

☕ CUPPA OF CHOICE: I start out the day with a mug of organic fermented Pu-erh tea, which makes me feel like Popeye drinking his spinach: strong and healthy! Then I switch to my husband’s delicious coffee, which he makes before he leaves the house. It keeps me alert through my writing session.

☕ HOT OFF THE PRESS: My most recent book is Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, illustrated by Rick Allen (HMH, 2014). Forthcoming: Before Morning, illustrated by Beth Krommes (HMH, October 2016).

☕ FAVE FOODIE CHILDREN’S BOOK: My favorite food related book is Jam: A True Story, by Margaret Mahy. I discovered it when my kids were small, and still love it. Very funny. It’s about canning!

☕ Visit Joyce Sidman’s Official Website.

☕☕ JUST ONE MORE SIP: Check out this marvelous interview by Mackin Educational Resources. Joyce talks about her books and shares some of her beautiful nature photography.

☕☕☕ CAN’T GET ENOUGH: Enjoy this video of Joyce reading “The Ants,” which is from her book Ubiquitous.

☕☕☕☕ STILL THIRSTY: You must watch this excellent video, “Winter Bees: Beyond the Book,” in which Joyce, illustrator Rick Allen, and editor Ann Rider discuss the process behind the creation of this beautiful multiple award-winning picture book. Love the winter walk with Joyce’s dog Watson, watching Joyce create a winter poem with a group of children, and seeing how Rick makes his wood engravings (masterful work!). And there’s cookies and cocoa. . . :).

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[review + giveaway] The Ugly Dumpling by Stephanie Campisi and Shahar Kober

March 29, 2016September 9, 2017 ~ jama ~ 46 Comments

My, my. A story about dim sum and dumplings. What could be more tempting? 🙂

In the The Ugly Dumpling (Mighty Media Kids, 2016), a new picture book by Stephanie Campisi and Shahar Kober, we are invited to the Golden Swan Restaurant for a “modern fable of friendship, feelings, and being different.”

Once upon a time,
perhaps last week,
or even last night,
at your local dim sum restaurant
there was an UGLY DUMPLING . . .

This ugly dumpling
was ugly
in its
OWN
ugly way.

Poor thing! Though the dumpling tried its best to be noticed by wrinkling its brow, standing up tall, or even wearing pleated pants, sadly it remained “uneaten and ignored.” But as fate would have it, along came a cockroach whose heart swelled with love, who wept upon seeing the ugly dumpling. It extended an arm (or a leg) in friendship, promising to show the dumpling “the beauty of the world.”

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beatrix part two: of guinea pigs, nursery rhymes and cupcakes

March 25, 2016June 25, 2024 ~ jama ~ 60 Comments

Today we are honored to welcome a very special guest to Alphabet Soup: the one and only Amiable Guinea-pig!

After reading and reviewing Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig by Deborah Hopkinson and Charlotte Voake (Schwartz & Wade, 2016), we felt a tasty homage to this dapper little fellow was definitely in order.

Peter Rabbit gets a lot of attention, as does Miss Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, Tom Kitten and Squirrel Nutkin. In fact, they all have their own little books written about them. But not the Amiable one, who was actually the first guinea pig in Miss Potter’s work. She wrote a clever limerick about him that appeared in Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (1917).

But one limerick does not a book make. Wouldn’t you feel a little slighted? To add insult to injury, initially Miss Potter’s publisher Frederick Warne & Co. wasn’t that keen on the Appley Dapply rhyme collection, which she had hoped to publish following the release of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902.

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beatrix part one: a review of Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig + other guinea pig musings

March 22, 2016June 25, 2024 ~ jama ~ 19 Comments

My Dear Reader,

Since I’m a big Beatrix Potter fan, I was happy to see Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig by Deborah Hopkinson and Charlotte Voake published in time to celebrate Miss Potter’s 150th birthday this year.

I enjoyed the story immensely, but I must confess it reminded me of my own tragic guinea pig experience (*shudder*). But more on that later.

This charming cautionary tale is about the time young Beatrix, who loved to draw and paint wild as well as tame animals, borrowed a guinea pig from her neighbor to use as a live model. She and her younger brother Bertram had lots of pets in the third floor playroom/science lab/art studio of their London home — pets such as snakes, snails, bats, ducks, rabbits, hedgehogs and salamanders. Though Beatrix loved all these creatures, we are warned early on that “she did not always have the best of luck with them.”

We are given evidence of several animal mishaps via journal entries that note an escaped snake and newts, a family of dead and dried up snails, and even a bat which was dismembered by a jay. And what of the unfortunate guinea pig? Beatrix especially loved painting animals doing “ordinary, everyday things, like reading the newspaper, working in the garden, or taking tea. (And why not?).” And the day came when Beatrix just had to paint a guinea pig and they didn’t have one at 2 Bolton Gardens. Not to worry, though, as quite a few of them apparently lived in Miss Paget’s parlor.