Wednesday is Library Day for Ms Lima's First Grade!

There Is A Land

There is a land--

A marvelous land--

Where trolls and giants dwell;

Where witches

With their bitter brew

Can cast a magic spell;

Where mermaids sing,

Where carpets fly,

Where, in the midst of night,

Brownies dance

To cricket tunes;

And ghosts, all shivery white,

Prowl and moan.

There is a land

Of magic folks and deeds,

And anyone

Can visit there

Who reads and reads and reads.

- Leland B. Jacobs

Leland Blair Jacobs (1907 - 1992)

Leland B. Jacobs was an American professor emeritus of education who was known for his education in the field of prose and poetry. Jacobs was born in Tawas City, Michigan and graduated from Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University). He obtained his Master's from the University of Michigan followed by Ph.D. from Ohio State University couple years later. Later on, he took a job as a school teacher in rural Michigan where he taught at junior high, high, and elementary school of the state, at the later of which he became principal of. Prior to his move to Teachers College, Columbia University in 1952 where he became a professor, he was a teacher at his alma mater, the Ohio State University. He then moved to Leonia, New Jersey where he taught numerous of future teachers on prose and poetry. After he retired from Columbia University he became a gospel preacher.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/07/nyregion/dr-leland-jacobs-85-educator-and-columbia-professor-emeritus.html

Questions, Questions by Marcus Pfister

In an age when infinite answers are available in an instant, maybe the questions we ask are what matter most. "There's so much that I want to know," writes Pfister, and in 13 short couplets he shows readers how questioning is a genuinely creative act—a way of being fully engaged in the world. His verses are by turns fanciful ("Do apple seeds dream happily/ of growing up to be a tree?"), scientifically minded ("What turns the leaves from green to brown/ and sends them floating gently down?"), and even faith-based ("Who teaches butterflies to fly,/ splashing their colors through the sky?"). Pfister has created images as pithy as they are poignant, boldly graphic and dramatically cropped against white backgrounds. A blue-headed songbird is reminiscent of Asian watercolor; a storm cloud looks like it's been fashioned from salt dough; falling leaves seem cut from pieces of thickly tufted carpet. Although each was created using the same painted paper method (explained on the final page), the results are as varied as the questions. Ages 3–up.

Nathaniel Talking by Eloise Greenfield illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist

811 GRE

Nathaniel Talking won the 1990 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. It is about a child thinking and exploring the world around him, while trying to find his own place in it.  Nine-year-old Nathaniel B. Free is a free-spirited African-American boy who is very intelligent and thoughtful.  

He raps, 

“Rested, dressed and feeling fine / 

I’ve got something on my mind / 

Friends and kin and neighborhood / 

Listen now and listen good / 

Nathaniel’s talking / 

Nathaniel B. Free.”  

He continues on to rap about what it is like to be his age, the knowledge he has gained, his mother who passed away last year, his friends, his school, his family, and even his future.  These complex stories are told through a child’s voice in a simple and fun way, engaging readers at a young age and encouraging them to think about the world as in depth as Nathaniel does.  Gilchrist’s black-and-white pencil drawings are not playful.  They illustrate the deep intellect and intelligence that each rap song encompasses.  Furthermore, the illustrations are mainly of Nathaniel and the people in his life, helping readers focus on the true emotions being felt by those characters in the story.  Even more, some of Nathaniel’s raps are in the form of a twelve-bar blues poem.  The last page of this book engages readers even more by describing to children how to create their own twelve-bar blues poems.

Langston Hughes

Here are two poems by Langston Hughes. 

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. 

He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry.

 He was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, MO and died May 22, 1967 in New York City, NY

2. 
   

811 HUG

My People

The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,

So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.

Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

8ll AFR

I, Too

I, too, sing America. 

I am the darker brother. 

They send me to eat in the kitchen 

When company comes, 

But I laugh, 

And eat well, 

And grow strong. 

Tomorrow, 

I’ll be at the table 

When company comes. 

Nobody’ll dare 

Say to me, 

“Eat in the kitchen,” 

Then. 

Besides, 

They’ll see how beautiful I am 

And be ashamed— 

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

Naomi Shihab Nye

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

Naomi Shihab Nye 

A Tumult of Poetry from the 800s!

When you search for subject: Poetry in the Loring Destiny Catalog you will get over 250 hits. Most of poetry is in the 800s but there is some Fiction written in poetry form.

808.81 Car

811 Sal

811.54 Nik

811.54 Pol

811 Dak

811 Upd

811.54 Beg

811 Pre

811 Spi

811 Sne

811 Sid

811 Gri

811 Ran

811 Vio