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The Poetry Friday Anthology continues to gain traction as over 1000 school districts across the U.S. are using it to plan lessons and share poetry with young people. Some districts have bought our books for every single classroom. And we know that our books have sold through Amazon to teachers and readers in Australia, England, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, and more—pretty exciting!

We continue to offer "extra" multimedia poetry connections online including poetry videos, poet readings on audio, bonus poems, and downloadable "postcards." Click here for more. PLUS, you can find many poems and Take 5 activities at Pinterest, too! Click here for more.

"Get a Life" by Eileen Spinelli

The Poetry Friday Anthology continues to reach new readers. At the National Council of Teachers of English conference, poet Eileen Spinelli read a poem from the book and we managed to capture it on film here. It's "Get a Life" featured in the Fifth Grade section, Week 16: Holidays, page 242. 

Enjoy!

Downloadable, printable postcards and Pocket Poems

If you haven't checked out our Pomelo Books website recently, now is the time!

We keep adding downloadable postcards and Pocket Poems that you can print and share any way you like:

*for bulletin boards and displays
*for poetry giveaways
*for bookmarks and newsletters

We have the poets' permissions to provide their poems in this visual way. Enjoy!

Click here.

Here is just a sample of what you'll find!

THE MORTIMER MINUTE: A Guest Post by Janet Wong

Earlier this month children's author April Halprin Wayland invited me to follow her in a Children's Poetry Blog Hop. Welcome to another installment of the Children's Poetry Blog Hop, aka The Mortimer Minute!

Here’s How-to-Hop, “Mortimer Minute” style!

• Answer 3 questions. Pick one question from the previous Hopper. Add two of your own. Keep it short, please! This is a Blog Hop, not a Blog Long Jump. This is The Mortimer Minute—not The Mortimer Millennium!
• Invite friends. Invite 1-2 bloggers who love children's poetry to follow you. They can be writers, teachers, librarians, or just-plain-old-poetry-lovers. 
• Say thank you. In your own post, link to The Previous Hopper. Then keep The Mortimer Minute going: let us know who your Hoppers are and when they plan to post their own Mortimer Minute.

Ready?

Mortimer: Is there a children's poem that you wish you had written? 

JW: “Puff” by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater. 

Mortimer: What do you have in your refrigerator?

JW: Yes, Mortimer: those ARE carrots you see there! Five pounds. Those carrots have been waiting for two weeks to get juiced. It will would be happening any day week now, except I’ll be on the road for two weeks (starting yesterday), speaking at conferences, attending book meetings, and visiting schools in Texas, Washington, and California. (Carrot $ has to come from somewhere.)

Mortimer: How can I (Mortimer) help you?

JW: In the kidlitosphere we have a thing called Poetry Friday. Bloggers put amazing posts up every Friday. A different host each week lists all these posts. I’m always enticed by a dozen posts but I rarely get around to reading more than 3. If I were to see “The Mortimer Minute” next to a couple of blogs next week, I would make a point of going there. You’d be giving me just the nudge I need. I mean, how could I NOT stop by a blog to visit you—for a minute?! 

My Mortimer Minute is almost up, so let me introduce the Hoppers who will follow me with The Mortimer Minute at their blogs next week!

Irene Latham

Irene Latham writes middle grade novels and poetry for all ages. Her recent works were inspired by her childhood love for exotic animals: DON'T FEED THE BOY is about a boy who wants to escape his life at the zoo and DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST (2014) is a collection of poems set at an African water hole.

Renée M. LaTulippe
Renée M. LaTulippe writes children's poetry and is co-author of LIZARD LOU: A COLLECTION OF RHYMES OLD AND NEW and seven early readers for All About Learning Press. Her children's poetry blog at No Water River features poetry videos, poet interviews, extension activities, and other poetry goodies. 

That’s it for this week. Thanks, Mortimer!

The Library

We continue to add "printables" based on poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology. You'll find them here at the "printables" link at PomeloBooks.com. Enjoy this latest-- based on the poem, "The Library," by Sara Holbrook. 

Printables

We know how visual kids are (and aren't we all, really?), so we decided we needed to create some mini-posters and postcards that feature our amazing poems. Thus, you will now find "printables" at our Pomelo Books site here. These printables take a poem and combine it with a contemporary image or photo that offers one interpretation of the poem. You can simply post it (electronically or print it out on paper) and offer a contemplative moment. Or you can use it as a prompt to talk with young people about how this image compares with what they imagine when they read or hear the poem. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a great poem image worth? Priceless!

Here's just one example:

Poetry Tips and E-books

As the U.S. school year winds down, we hope you'll continue to share poems with the young people you reach-- all year long. There are so many wonderful works written just for them and so many creative ways to invite them into the world of poetry. Here are a few nuggets from the instructional "back matter" of The Poetry Friday Anthology that you made find helpful. 

Your Poetry Checklist

     *Highlight poetry books on the chalk rail, a red wagon, or a table

     *Seek out poetry books from diverse perspectives

     *Link poems with picture books, novels, and nonfiction

     *Connect children’s poetry with social studies, science, and mathematics

     *Tell your colleagues about Poetry Friday!


E-Resources for Poetry Teaching

One of the most controversial topics in the world of reading today concerns e-books. Some people think that e-books will replace paper books and change the way we read—and they’re afraid of those changes. We agree that changes will happen, but we’re excited by the possibilities. Consider:

• a teacher can read a book review at lunch and buy an e-book version of it (for less than the price of lunch);
• that book might be a collection of poems from Mexico or Australia but is delivered immediately without shipping costs or custom fees;
• the teacher can download the e-book onto an e-reader and also a regular computer that can be projected onto a screen for the whole class to read aloud together;
• e-resources are easily searchable. A teacher can look for a poem using keywords like family or armadillo. Even if you prefer paper books, you might consider owning a second copy that is digital as a teaching resource;
• and reluctant readers (who might not like paper books but might enjoy manipulating text on a screen) can read the book using electronic bookmarks, a glossary, and sometimes read-aloud features, too.

Poetry is particularly well-suited to e-books. Imagine: a second grader is standing in line at the post office with his mother. He is bored. His mother hands him her cell phone. To play a video game? No: to read a poem in an e-book. He reads the short poem to himself and likes it. Then he reads it again—as he’s been taught—aloud. His mother laughs. The woman standing behind him laughs.  He reads another poem aloud and directs his mother (in a second reading) to chime in and guess the rhyming word. The man in front of him turns around to say the rhyming words. Next thing they know, the boy and his mother are first in line and bursting with the joy of reading.

The Poetry Friday Anthology is available in both print and e-book forms. (For both K-5 and for Middle School) So, consider getting a copy of each so that you can project individual poems using the e-book version as you lead the teaching activities.

Also, check out our e-book anthologies featuring poems by many of the same poets from the PFA. Look for:
 
    PoetryTagTime.Blogspot.com (poems linked poem-to-poem for children and all ages)

    TeenPoetryTagTime.Blogspot.com (linked ekphrastic poetry for tweens and teens)

    PoetryGiftTag.Blogspot.com  (holiday poetry linked from poem to poem)


Meanwhile, we wish you many happy Fridays (and every day) with poems and poetry. And please share your stories with us about young people's responses. Enthusiasm for poetry is contagious!

See you over at Ed's place, Think, Kid, Think! for this week's Poetry Friday round up.