Kelly Fineman, this year's (and last year's!) Poetry category organizer, brings us today's featured review on her blog Writing and Ruminating. Kelly herself is a poet, and you'll frequently see her participating in Poetry Friday as well as writing about children's poetry and other books.
Over the summer, she reviewed a book by one of our 2008 poetry panelists (who's also a frequent participant in Poetry Friday and other kidlitosphere poetry activities), Laura Purdie Salas' Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School, illustrated by Steven Salerno. Poems about individual children and groups of children at school bring out the "animal" side of going to class and interacting with other kids. Kelly says:
Laura's work is clever, creative and playful. It includes poems about groups of children (e.g., "Swarm", which likens the buzz of conversation to a swarm of bees or "Stampede", which compares the thundering of kids heading for the exit at day's end to a herd of elephants) as well as poems about individuals – usually in uncomfortable situations that most kids can relate to.
Click here for the full review.