poetry friday

Paddington’s Twelve Days of Christmas by Michael Bond, Karen Jankel and R.W. Alley (+ a holiday blog break)

~ jama ~ 35 Comments

Ho Ho Ho and Fa la la!

What better way to celebrate Christmas than with our favorite bear from Darkest Peru? Paddington’s Twelve Days of Christmas by Michael Bond, Karen Jankel, and R.W. Alley (HarperCollins, 2025) was just released in September and as far as we’re concerned, any new Paddington picture book is a special gift.

This story was actually first published in 1988 as Paddington’s Magical Christmas (art by David McKee), and then in 1993 (art by John Lobban). Now for this recently revised edition, longtime and current Paddington illustrator R.W. Alley has created brand new pen-and-ink and watercolor spreads that fairly sing from the pages with energy and pizzazz.

So what is dear Paddington up to this time?

One day while writing Christmas cards he overhears Mrs Bird singing — unusual in itself, but even more surprising since it was about her true love sending her a partridge in a pear tree. What a great idea! Wish he’d thought of it since he needs a special present for the Browns. But when he checks the garden, there’s not a pear tree or partridge in sight.

He then hears Mrs Brown singing that her true love had sent four calling birds, three French hens and two turtledoves — and another partridge in a pear tree. Paddington hurries outside again, only to find none of these things anywhere. What is going on?

And that’s not the end of it. Next, Judy breaks out in song. What was she given? Everything Mrs Brown received plus five gold rings! Wow! The Browns’ friend must be very rich to be able to afford so many presents.

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nosing around

~ jama ~ 25 Comments

“You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.” ~ John Green

I smell something funny.

“Running Nose #93” by Stephen Green (2011), via Saatchi Art.
BE GLAD YOUR NOSE IS ON YOUR FACE
by Jack Prelutsky

Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place—
be glad your nose is on your face!

~ from The New Kid on the Block (Greenwillow, 1984).

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[peaceful review] Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman and Naoko Stoop

~ jama ~ 25 Comments

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.” ~ Mary Oliver

Beloved American poet Mary Oliver is well known for her sensitive, pure-hearted observations of the natural world, but did you know she credited her love of nature and poetry with saving her life?

Thanks to Woods & Words: The Story of Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman and Naoko Stoop (Beach Lane Books, 2025), young readers will learn how a lonely girl survived a difficult childhood by finding refuge in the woods and writing about the wonders she found there. Her lifelong practice of walking in the wild and treating poetry as central to her very existence would earn her literary acclaim, but more importantly, the rare status of being a popular, best-selling poet in an otherwise poetry-indifferent age.

We first see young Mary in the woods, crouched in a grass-and-sticks hut she had stitched herself, “noticing” treasures like birdsong, velvet leaves, and “a glittering beam of light.”

Whenever she felt confined by classroom walls, she made the woods her school. There, she wrote, filling stacks of notebooks, alone except for books by favorite poets like Poe, Blake, and Whitman.

The spring after graduating from high school, Mary drove to Steepletop in upstate New York, where she stayed in an old farmhouse where the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived. She helped Edna’s sister organize papers and “wrapped herself in woods and words. What more could she ask for?”

One day, Mary saw a visitor at the kitchen table — it was love at first sight! Mary and Molly became inseparable, capturing the world around them, Mary with her words, Molly with her camera.

They eventually settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Mary continued to walk the woods or along the shore, searching for poems: “There were always poems if you paid attention,” whether under leaves, on the backs of black snakes, or prompted by the sweet or rotten smells she encountered. She carried a pocket notebook and stashed pencils in trees so she’d always be ready.

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cheese, glorious cheese!

~ jama ~ 25 Comments 
AMERICAN CHEESE 
by Jim Daniels

At department parties, I eat cheeses
my parents never heard of—gooey 
pale cheeses speaking garbled tongues.
I have acquired a taste, yes, and that's
okay, I tell myself. I grew up in a house
shaded by the factory's clank and clamor.
A house built like a square of sixty-four
American Singles, the ones my mother made lunches
With—for the hungry man who disappeared
into that factory, and five hungry kids.
American Singles. Yellow mustard. Day-old 
Wonder Bread. Not even Swiss, with its mysterious
holes. We were sparrows and starlings
still learning how the blue jay stole our eggs,
our nest eggs. Sixty-four Singles wrapped in wax—
dig your nails in to separate them.

When I come home, I crave—more than any home
cooking—those thin slices in the fridge. I fold
one in half, drop it in my mouth. My mother
can't understand. Doesn't remember me
being a cheese eater, plain like that. 

~ from In Line for the Exterminator. © Wayne State University Press, 2007.

*

via Click Americana

Raise your hand if you grew up with Kraft American Singles — *looks around* — okay, I see that’s most of you. 🙂

photo by J. Kenji López-Alt/Serious Eats

Did your Mom tuck them in your lunchbox sandwiches along with baloney or ham? Did you ever snack on a slice to satisfy between-meal munchies? Remember how your mouth watered as you anticipated that first bite of a juicy grilled burger with melty cheese oozing down the sides? Or best of all, what about the fine art of slowly pulling apart a warm grilled cheese sandwich just to see how far those gooey strings would s-t-r-e-t-c-h?

photo by Ralph Smith/Food Network
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[review] Wisdom of the Woods by Rachel Piercey and Freya Hartas

~ jama ~ 20 Comments

Basil and Cornelius are beary excited about a new children’s poetry book written by UK poet and editor Rachel Piercey. Wisdom of the Woods: 40 Poems to Treasure (Magic Cat Publishing, 2024), is part of the wildly popular Brown Bear Wood series illustrated by Freya Hartas, which includes board books, coloring books, and interactive search-and-find adventure stories written in verse (which we featured here and here).

Readers who enjoy a poetic blend of nature and science will revel in these lyrical gems, as they immerse us in the wonder, joy and magic of Brown Bear Wood. How delightful to spend more time with our friend Bear and his many forest companions — above, below, and on the ground!

This book is actually a special gift to Bear from his Papa:

Dearest Bear,

The time has come, my little cub,
to pass into your paws
the Wisdom of the Woods --
a book of Nature's ancient laws.

It's been with us for many years,
passed down from bear to bear.
And now it's yours to read and use,
to think about and share.

The poems you will find inside
explore our woodland home,
the tiny daily miracles
occurring as we roam,

and how the plants and creatures
work in harmony, to grow.
So turn the page -- you're ready, Bear.
These things are yours to know . . . 

Love, Papa Bear

The winsome rhyming poems are presented in eight sections, taking us from dawn to dusk:

  • Beginnings
  • At Home in the Woodland
  • Among the Trees
  • Woodland Weather
  • Mighty Minibeasts
  • Look Closer
  • So Many Seeds
  • Goodnight, Woodland

Piercey effortlessly incorporates lots of interesting facts in her fun-to-read-aloud verses, everything from seed dispersion and pollination, to metamorphosis and migration, to condensation and photosynthesis. Readers will learn how the natural order of things works, especially with regard to the symbiosis of plants and animals, all the while charmed by lovable Bear and the fascinating creatures who share his cozy woodland habitat.

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