A Bad Case of the Giggles: Kids’ Favorite Funny Poems, Selected by Bruce Lansky, Illustrated by Stephen Carpenter

            This anthology includes fun poems that are highly engaging for students to read. Most of the poems rhyme and are no longer than a page. Each of the poems is illustrated with detailed black and white drawings that add humor to every page. My favorite poem is “Smart” by Shel Silverstein (page 7). This poem is told from a child’s point of view as she is given a dollar bill but eventually trades it for five pennies thinking it is worth more. When she shows her dad, she thinks her dad is so proud of her that he has no words, but in reality, her dad cannot believe she traded a dollar for five cents. This type of fun humor permeates the book with each carefully-selected passage.

            I would have this book in my second, third, or fourth-grade classroom so that the students are free to read the poems that they choose. I believe that these poems would be useful to intrigue students to read poetry. Every poem has a fun and simple rhyme pattern and rhythm that would be easy and engaging for students this age to read. Often, students grow to dislike poems since some poems have deep, hidden meanings, and the content is usually serious. However, this book can instill a love of poetry and show students that poetry can be fun and silly. Additionally, the poems in this book invite children to make inferences because not all detail is given. For example, in “Smart,” the students could infer that her dad’s reaction is actually from disbelief or disappointment and not pride like the speaker thinks. Inference-making builds students’ critical thinking skills, so I would definitely use poems in this book to have students practice this skill.

The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book,  Assembled by Iona and Peter Opie, Illustrated by Joan Hassall

            This anthology incorporates many different wordplays and poems. It includes baby games, lullabies, songs, educational poems, riddles, and tongue-twisters. Most of the poems are fairly short and only a few lines in length. Other poems are a few pages long but are separated into several parts. There are many familiar nursery rhymes and songs, and some that are lesser-known but still useful, fun, and educational. There are multiple poems on each page and some black and white illustrations for most of the poems. Since this is a classic collection of nursery rhymes, there are concepts in a few of the poems that are not politically correct or appropriate for children anymore. Some of my favorite selections from the collection are the nursery rhymes that I grew up singing like “Hickory, Dickory, Dock,” “Jack be Nimble,” and “Humpty Dumpty” (pages 24-25). The book classifies these short rhymes as “Jingles.”

            Preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders would benefit from selections of this anthology. As previously mentioned, not all of the poems are appropriate at present, so I would not keep it in the classroom library. However, I would love to refer to this book when selecting poems, especially nursery rhymes, to include in class time. Many teachers and parents have neglected nursery rhymes, but nursery rhymes can provide such valuable training with young children for hearing rhyme and rhythm. Additionally, these poems are ideal for young children since most of them are simple, engaging, and short. Possibly for third or fourth graders, the riddle poems would be fun for them to find the answer while being exposed to new vocabulary, rhyme, and problem-solving. For social studies, this book incorporates poems about history that help students remember events or order of monarchs.

Children’s Classic Poetry, Arranged by Michael O’Mara Books Limited

This anthology incorporates several children’s poems about different topics including animals, weather, magic, love, emotions, and people. Each of the poems varies in length since some are a few lines and others span pages. Since this book is classic literature, some of the words or concepts in the poems are archaic, and this may cause confusion for some students. For example, in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” John Keats uses words such as “grot,” “sedge,” and “thrall” (pages 44-46). However, most grade school children have had no exposure to these words, so the teacher would need to go over this new vocabulary with them or have them decipher the words using context clues. One of my favorite poems from the anthology is “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman (pages 76-77). This poem describes the captain of a ship that has died after battle. The speaker in the poem is the son of the Captain who has sailed with his father and the crew but now grieves his father while their enemies celebrate their victory. Furthermore, this anthology is beautifully illustrated by Robin Lawrie. Each illustration adds to the poem by demonstrating inferences and going deeper into the meaning of the text.

            Due to the nature of classic poetry, this anthology would best suit fourth or fifth-grade students. This book would be fantastic to use when studying poetry in these grades. Some of the poems rhyme and some do not. Some have an obvious rhythm, and others are more free verse. Additionally, some of the poems would be useful when studying different cultures in social studies. For example, “The Lion and the Unicorn” is about a power struggle within the United Kingdom, as demonstrated by the crest in the illustration. “A Cornish Charm” reflects the fear and superstition accompanied by a plea to the Lord that these people had at the time. It would be interesting to have the students examine various poems to derive the values and emotions of the culture and its people. Then, the students could write a poem about another part of history they have studied. As mentioned earlier, the book incorporates many antiquated words. This would allow the students to practice using context clues to figure out the meaning of the unknown words. After they make their guesses about the word, I would tell them what the word means so they will know the accuracy of their guess. I would most likely keep this book in the class library and then use specific poems as needed in the lessons. This way, the students are free to explore this collection of classic poetry.

Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child’s Book of Poems, Selected by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, Eva Moore, Mary Michaels White, Jan Carr

            This book has poetry that covers a wide variety of topics including rhyme, weather, silliness, and feelings. The poems come from a variety of sources and cover a wide range of grade levels. For example, the poems from the “In a Few Words” section are short with simple vocabulary that a kindergartener or first-grader could read independently. However, some of the poems like Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” are longer and require students to make more inferences based upon prior knowledge, so it would be more suitable for third grade or older. The illustrations for the poems are created by these Caldecott Medal artists: Marcia Brown, Leo and Diane Dillon, Richard Egielski, Trina Schart Hyman, Arnold Lobel, Maurice Sendak, Marc Simont, and Margot Zemach. Each of these talented artists illustrated all of the poems for a different section in the book. Because of this, each of the illustration styles are different in each section, and all of the illustrations add value and understanding to the poems.

            As previously mentioned, different poems in this book are appropriate for different grade levels. Therefore, this book would be a great addition to any elementary classroom library. Because different students within a grade are on varying reading levels, this book could easily accommodate nearly all of the students in a classroom when studying poems. If I had this book at a reading center in first grade, I would have a sticky note or a bookmark on the poems that I would recommend the first graders read. However, I would make sure the students know that they are free to explore the other poems and challenge themselves. If I were teaching an older grade about poems and figurative language, I would select a more advance poem like Robert Frost’s or “Windy Nights” by Robert Louis Stevenson to do a whole class lesson or small group study. From an artistic perspective, the students could compare and contrast the media and styles of the nine different illustrators because none of the artists create the same style of art.

Odes to Common Things, by Pablo Neruda, Ken Krabbenhoft, and Illustrated by Ferris Cook

            This anthology of odes is the bilingual edition in English and Spanish. The odes teach the reader to view even mundane and ordinary objects in a new light. There are odes about a bar of soap, bread, a chair, and more objects that people pass without giving a second thought. Every two-page spread, starting with the table of contents, has the ode in Spanish on the left page and the English ode on the right. My favorite poem from the anthology is “Ode to a pair of socks.” This ode adds a surprising amount of figurative language that compares the speaker’s feet in the socks to “navy-blue sharks” and “two cannons,” and this depth of figurative language is evident throughout the anthology (75, 77). Each of the odes connects the object to a greater purpose or depth of meaning that is truly surprising upon first reading it. For example, the “Ode to the spoon” connects the spoon to the problem of world hunger and hope for eliminating this global issue. Additionally, the illustrations add a simplistic but strikingly beautiful touch to each ode that helps the reader visualize the object while reading.

            This book would be most suited for a fourth, fifth, or sixth-grade classroom. The odes utilize a higher vocabulary, figurative language, and some intense themes, so it would not be appropriate for younger grades. Furthermore, I would love to use this book for upper-elementary EL’s because the book is printed in Spanish and English side by side. This way, the students could go back and forth between the languages as they feel comfortable and learn new vocabulary or help them understand the theme and figurative language of the poem by reading it in their native language. I could either have this book in my classroom library or use one or two of the poems as a whole-class lesson. After studying some of these odes, the students could write their own ode to an everyday object. However, I would challenge the students to incorporate figurative language and to give their object a deeper meaning than what is at face value. This way,

students can express their creativity and write about what is important in their lives. Then, to add an artistic layer, the students could draw their object using a variety of media and share their poems with the class if they choose.