Hamsters, Shells, and Spelling Bees School Poems, Edited by Lee Benneet Hopkins, Pictures by Sachiko Yoshikawa

When I was in elementary school, I don't remember reading poetry too often so this week opened my eyes to a world of poetry picture books. This book in particular is a collection of poems written by a variety of authors. A few of the poets I recognized such as Jane Yolen. This poetry book would be a good introductory book for young readers to poetry because they can relate to a lot of the poems. There are a bunch of common (and a few not so common) school experiences. Although each poem is its own unique piece, the way this book is organized goes by the order of the school day. It begins with before school activities like getting ready or catching the bus and then goes into during school activities. This includes things like show and tell, drawing maps, and looking through microscopes. Finally, the poems bring up after school activities and extracurriculars extracurriculars such as simply going home after school or being part of the school play.

This book can open students' eyes, showing them that poetry can be about anything. It also shows how individual poems can be put together in an anthology revolving around a common theme. A minilesson on organization would be useful as well as a minilesson about a technique for publishing work from a student's writer's notebook. Poems don't have any length requirement. Students can also learn how to focus in one event in a poem. Rather than talking about the entire school day in one poem, this book broke up the poems into manageable chunks, focusing in on one aspect of school at a time.

Many of the poems take on a children's perspective. The poem, Not Fair, by David L. Harrison captures the feelings of basically every elementary school student when the weather becomes nice in the spring. Who wants to be cooped up inside all day doing math and reading when you could be outside enjoying the fresh air and flying a kite? And let me tell you a little secret...this feeling doesn't go away even in college. Of course I'd rather be outside enjoying myself than in class. The poems are often humorous too. Library by J. Patrick Lewis show a student's excitement about going to the library, but then in a week or two, the book is overdue. I remember those library reminders about an overdue book. It's not a fun feeling to get one of those. Another poem that I particularly connected to was Buzz by Ann Rousseau Smith. There were a few times in elementary school when a bumblebee would get into the classroom, and let me be the first to tell you, students go wild. Sometimes the teacher does too.

With all kinds of poems come all kinds of fun pictures. The illustrator, Sachiko Yoshikawa, uses bright colors across the width of the 2-page span. There isn't any white space on the page. Students can learn from this about how to make the most out of their pictures and create an illustration to support the poem. The erase on the page in The Eraser Poem by Louis Phillips shows the erasing flakes and a smiling eraser. The poem itself is also a simple concept. Take one letter away on each line until the last line is just the T from The. This book is a fun, lighthearted read that would be great to read as a class or to include in the classroom library. As part of the I Can Read! books, students can be introduced to more than just fictional stories but also to poetry.