Do You Haiku?

I was asked to teach 4 poetry workshops to the 4 second grade classes at Mann School in Oak Park, District 97. This is part of the Art Start program, funded by the Oak Park Education Foundation. I've never taught poetry workshops for Art Start before, never done a series of poetry workshops, and never taught poetry without first using art as an entry into the creative process.

I decided to ask for some advice. Debbie Creticos is a second grade teacher at Longfellow School. We've worked together on Art Start (art) projects for at least 4, maybe more years. And sometimes we've introduced poetry to go with the art. Debbie invited another second grade teacher to join us and we brainstormed poetry and second graders together. At the end of the session Debbie said, "You'll be fine. They'll love you."

I reread Gooney Bird Is So Absurd, by Lois Lowry. This is a book Debbie introduced me to several years ago. Gooney Bird Green is a fabulous second grade character who likes to be in the middle of things and who wears the most flamboyant outfits imaginable. And each of the books in the series focuses on different aspects of writing and story-telling. In Gooney Bird Is So Absurd, the class is studying poetry. Following Lois Lowry's lead, I decided to begin with Haiku for my first Art Start workshop.

I turned to another great book, Haiku (Asian Arts and Crafts For Creative Kids) by Patricia Donegan. In this book the author provides a real understanding of traditional Japanese haiku, provides 7 keys to writing haiku, and includes many examples of both traditional Japanese haiku and haiku written by contemporary poets including children from all around the world.

Since my workshops are only 30 minutes long, the teachers follow up after I leave and help the students continue writing. I made a poster for each class with examples of haiku poems and a page spread from the proofs for my own book, The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound: A Birder's Journal. Each season opens with a bird list, a sketch of a white oak tree in that season, a few bird sketches, and a haiku appropriate to the season. I also included a sheet of tips for writing haiku (basically taken from Donegan's Haiku book. Here's a copy of that sheet:

How to Write Haiku:

Haiku poems are made up of very few words, maybe six to ten, broken into three short lines. If you are trying to count syllables, the pattern is:

5 syllables

7 syllables

5 syllables

It is not necessary to count syllables.

Describe a moment in time—something that actually happened to you, that you actually saw. Choose your words carefully to paint a picture in your mind. Use descriptive words—not just “flower” but what kind of flower, what color flower, what about that flower is special and unique?

Create a snapshot, a picture, using words. Use your senses to get in touch with the world around you.

What do you see?

What do you hear?

What do you smell?

What do you taste?

What do you feel?

At recess, at lunch, on your way to and from school, pay attention to the world around you. Watch with “haiku eyes,” keep an open mind. Prepare to be surprised and find your haiku moment.

I left each class with a poster, a stack of magazines for cutting up, and nice blue card stock for the kids to write out their finished poems on and illustrate, perhaps using the page proofs from my book as inspiration. Here's a list of the books I left each class:

Lois Lowry, Gooney Bird Is So Absurd

Jack Prelutsky, If Not For The Cat

Bob Raczka, Guyku

Sallie Wolf, The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound: A Birder's Journal

Well, It's Been A While Since Last I Wrote

I haven't been keeping up with my reading journal the way I'd planned, but I sure have been reading. That's about all I did this winter--curl up on the couch with a good book. My favorite book since I wrote last has been Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt. Richard Peck wrote the review for the New York Times. I won't try to top that, but there were all kinds of reasons why I loved this book. The first was the voice--the narrator, Doug, had a very distinctive way of addressing the reader, asking numerous time, "You know how that feels?" And as the book progresses these questions shift from being confrontational, angry, hurt, to expressing joy, wonder, gratitude. The Doug's growth is displayed in his questions.

Another reason I loved this book was because each chapter began with a reproduction of an Audubon print of a bird and Doug's description of the print. I have always believed in the healing power of art and Doug comes under that spell. His ability to see his world in the world of Audubon's birds opened up new ideas of how pictures convey their meaning. I'm an artist, with an art degree, and I learned about composition from reading this book.

This is the last reason for liking the book that I'll give, but it's not the last reason I have--Doug has to reach outside his family to find adults who will give him the support and help that he needs to overcome so many obstacles in his path. And he finds help in many strange places and in turn is able to help others. The message is important--that there are people who care about you even when your parents can't or don't. Doug feels as if he is entirely on his own at the beginning of the book, with no one who can take his side, and by the end of the book he has built a community of caring people.

If you haven't read this book, you should--it's a great story, powerfully written.

Reading Journal

Me . . . Jane 
written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell
Little Brown and Company, New York
2011
Illustrations are India ink and watercolor on paper
Text set in Caslon Book, display type is P22 Franklin Caslon
48 pp. counting pasted down endpapers

Patrick McDonnell is the creator of Mutts, the comic strip. His soft watercolor and ink illustrations have the same whimsical feel as the comic strip. The squirrels are identical. The text tells the story of Jane Goodall as a young child, her love for nature and animals and her budding interest in studying animal behavior. One page of biography in the back matter fills in some of her adult accomplishments. There is also a note from Jane Goodall herself, urging the reader to make a difference in the world.

Ornamental engravings from the 19th and early 20th century underlie the text pages and suggest Jane's scientific bent. Also included are a few photographs and some drawings by Jane herself. The book has a quiet, playful, intimate feel. The palette of the watercolors is muted. I think I would have identified with Jane when I was younger and might have been inspired by her persistence to follow her dreams of studying wildlife in Africa. While not strictly a biography, this book introduces very young readers to a very important person whose work has had great impact on the world.



The Little Dump Truck
written by Margery Cuyler and illustrated by Bob Kolar
Christy Ottaviano Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York
2009
illustrations created in Adobe Illustrator on a Macintosh computer
32 pp. counting pasted down endpapers
Cardboard cover with no jacket--the corners of the book on rounded and the paper is very heavy stock

This is a rhyming truck book, with no real story, beyond detailing a day in the life of a little dump truck and its driver. Each 4 line stanza begins, "I'm a little dump truck"-- The meter is snappy and clipped, the rhyme solid, though no surprises. I really like the subdued palette and the composition of the illustrations but find the super-hard edges of the computer art difficult to look at. 



Ruby's Wish
written by Shirin Yim Bridges and illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Chronicle Books, San Francisco
2002
illustrations are gouache on Arches hot-pressed paper
bood design by Kristen M. Nobles
Typeset in Hiroshige and Ruling Script
Chinese calligraphy by Jianwei Fong
32 pp. not counting endpapers

The story of a young Chinese girl who yearned to study and go to university, like all her brothers. Each page has a touch of red in it, often lots of red, Ruby's favorite color. A warm family story.



All the Way To America: The Story of A Big Italian Family and A Little Shovel
written and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
a Borzoi Book, Alfred A Knopf, New York
2011
illustratations are gouache on Arches watercolor paper

The story of 4 generations of Dan Yaccarino's family as they moved from Italy to New York City to the suburbs and back to the city. It reminds me of Janet's St. Patrick's Day story, only this family is Italian, not Irish. The tiny shovel is the unifying element--it is passed from one generation to another and is shown pictured with D.Y. on the jacket cover.
40 pp. counting pasted down endpapers

Some Books Are Better Than Others

I am struggling to find something really compelling to read, now that I've finished The Cave Painters, by Gregory Curtis. That was a great book. I love the subject matter--the beautiful paintings of animals deep in the caves of France and Spain. And I felt the author wrote well and organized the material extremely well, combining the history of the discovery, exploration, and attempts to explain the cave art with solid descriptions of the caves themselves. It read like a mystery and yet was solidly grounded in fact the whole way. The author was very forthcoming with what were his opinions versus what is generally agreed on and he also made clear his allegiances in the politically charged world of archaeology. Must read more about this soon.

Meanwhile, I picked up Lorna Doone, a story I remember reading quite a while ago and getting totally engrossed in it. I have a friend named Lorna whose mother read this while pregnant, hence the name. I've gotten about 60 pages in, and while it is readable (though challenging, since it is written in dialect), I am not caught up in it yet and wonder if it is really worth wading through all 600+ pages of packed type. I looked it up on Wikipedia, learned that while it was inspired by historical events, it declines to pass itself off as "based on true events" like so many movies these days. It insists on calling itself "a romance." Will I finish this book or not? Should I keep in on the bookshelf or not?

So, while debating the virtues of reading Lorna Doone, I have become distracted by Chasing Cezanne, by Peter Mayle. A disappointing book, written almost entirely in generic or cliched descriptions. I think I'll finish tonight but it makes me question my previous intention to read a Year In Provence, if this is a sample of his writing.

Story Telling

I'm sorting out my front room and came across some notes I took on story telling. I do not consider myself a story teller. I read and I read aloud to my kids until they were in high school. I sang to them every night at bedtime and even made up songs for them. But I've never seen myself as a story teller.

"There is a story telling voice," I wrote in my notes. "There are gestures and facial expressions." And yet the best story teller I ever heard (and I haven't heard that many) did not use gestures, facial expressions, and she told it in her own voice. She stood very still, with her hands behind her back and spoke in a normal tone of voice. And I can almost hear her tell that story nearly 30 years later. Her connection to the story--letting the story take over the space--was so powerful that I remember her story and I have retold that story and it has changed my life in subtle ways.

It was a story about three brothers who set off to win the king's daughter. The older two muscled their way through the world, ignoring the small animals in their path, wreaking havoc wherever they went. The youngest brother took care not to harm the ants, bees, and ducks (if I remember this right) and even aided them. When the king set him three seemingly impossible tasks these small creatures came to his aid and he won the princess.

The story teller prefaced this tale with the story of one of her kindergarten students who requested that she retell this story. Normally the teacher would not retell a story so quickly, but the girl had a reason. A bee had been trapped in her window at home. Her mother set out to kill it, but the girl, inspired by the story she had heard at school, quoted the youngest brother, saying, "Don't harm it. It has done us no harm." She and her mother caught the bee and set it free outside. The teacher told us this anecdote to demonstrate the power of a good story. I too usually try to capture misplaced insects and bugs and set them free outside, inspired by the power of the girl's example.

Here are the notes I have from this wonderful teacher and story teller:

"Sit so I can see your eyes," she asks her class.

"All it [story telling] is is talking a story." She tells it in her own voice and the children listen.

The story is important and the telling is the most important thing--that it is being told.

"I only tell stories I like." Anything worth telling is worth retelling.

She suggested we read Amos and Boris to get started.
She said she reads a story 2 or 3 times.
Tells it to herself.
Reread.
Retell.
Practice at dinner time.

"Once you tell a story it's yours for life."

3 - 7 - 12 are the magic numbers

Story telling builds memory. The more you tell stories the freer children are to tell their stories.

True stories are marvelous.

Value of Mother Goose -- 11 good riddles [I'm not sure exactly what this last line means except I think it means Mother Goose is a good place to look for stories and telling riddles is a good way to get started.]

And now I can recycle this sheet of paper which has floated around my writing room for years and years and years. End of story.

Playing Catch Up

Books I’ve read this year but have not written up:

Mother Poems

Hope Anita Smith

Christy Ottaviano Books, Henry Holt and Company

New York, 2009

Torn paper illustrations

Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs

Ron Koertge

Candlewick

2010

at least as good as the first one—I love these stories, told in poems, about a 14 year old baseball player/poet.

I Never told and Other Poems

Myra Cohn Livingston

Blackberry Ink

Eve Merriam

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

Candace Fleming

Ill. by G. Brian Karas

Atheneum Books for Young readers

2002

The Old Woman Who Named Things

Cynthia Rylant

Ill. by Kathryn Brown

Harcourt brace & Company

1996

wc on Waterford paper

Just finished reading:

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

By Helen Simonson

Random House trade paperback

Copyright 2010, 355 pp., 25 chapters + Epilogue

I loved reading this book, and it fit very well with our recent SCBWI Oak Park network discussion on Reading Like A Writer, Francine Prose. Simonson obviously loves sentences. She writes really fun and beautiful ones. She has a great sense of humor which is totally in the repartee and unspoken thoughts, not in slapstick or coincidence. I have been rereading some of the book and am a bit more critical the second time around. Certain phrases are perhaps over-used, such as “acid tone to the voice.” And the word “Humpbacked” occurs at least twice in the 355 pp. as an adjective not referring to whales. I did not notice the repetition when reading the book for the first time. It is only because I made note of (what I think is) the second mention—a beautiful sentence describing the gibbous moon rising—that I was struck on rereading by an earlier occurrence of the word. This does not significantly detract from the book, but I think it is something to be aware of, especially when writing a longer book—we authors fall in love with certain turns of phrase and can repeat ourselves unwittingly. I know my vocabulary and sentence structure, just in writing this, have been influenced by the book.

And something I’m curious about—the main characters are 68 and 51. Does this mean that twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings will not respond to the characters and the story the same way I did? I remember having trouble engaging with characters who seemed so much removed from me in age, when I was younger. But I may have been a shallower reader. And certain books have reeled me in even against my will and made me care deeply about characters with whom I felt I had little connection—Color Purple, Beloved, She’s Come Undone, and Shipping News all come to mind as books with characters I felt had little in common with myself and yet I came to love them. And the reason is they were so well-written that I could not stop reading.

Also just finished:

I Am The Messenger

by Markus Zusak

Alfred A. Knopf

copyright 2002

Zusak also wrote The Book Thief, which is one of my favorite books of the last 10 years. I Am The Messanger is not up to The Book Thief, and it was written earlier. I felt I could see Zusak learning to use language in innovative ways, developing his unusual and appealing characters--he was learning a lot in writing this book that came together in an amazing way in The Book Thief. His themes include the power of small acts and the goodness of ordinary people. I have read The Book Thief twice. I feel that I Am The Messenger, while I'm glad I read it, is not a keeper for my over-crowded bookshelves.

Reading Journal July 8, 2011

The Boss Baby

Written and Illus. by Marla Frazee

Beach Lane Books, copyright 2010

Book design by Ann Bobco

Text set in Heatwave

Illustrations are rendered in black Prismacolor pencil and gouache on Strathmore 2-ply cold press paper

40 pages, counting the end papers, with pages 1 & 40 pasted down

The art for this book is tremendous, with great humorous touches and a wonderful “Mad Men” look, and the text is also full of humor, using many business terms (boss, perks, meetings, executive gym, 24/7, out of the box.) Told in a very straight-forward, tongue-in-cheek way, this book makes a wonderful read-aloud, which parents will totally love. That makes me wonder who the real audience for this book is. It is not the baby itself, who would be way too young to understand the terminology or the humor. It might well be an older sibling who feels displaced by the baby—this book would provide a way of laughing at the situation, while describing pretty much what has happened. And it might make a child wonder if he or she was a boss baby when first born.

Roller Coaster

Written and Illus. by Marla Frazee

Voyager Books, Harcourt, Inc., copyright 2003

Illustrations done in graphite and watercolor on Strathmore 2-ply hot press paper

From the CIP—“Twelve people set aside their fears and ride a roller coaster, including one who had never done so before.” There is almost no story-line. The author describes people waiting in line, checking their height, deciding not to ride, getting aboard, and the ride itself. The beauty and genius of the book is in the illustrations, where the twelve riders are differentiated and fleshed out in the drawings. Facial expression and gesture convey way more than the simple text as the ride is taken. This is a book to study for subtle characterization, esp. through pictures.

Very defined time-line—waiting in line, riding the roller coaster, and getting off. However, each of the twelve riders has been through a unique experience on this shared ride. The relationships of the 6 pairs are worth examining in detail.