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You are here: Home / Archives for Poetry/Tales

Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac

June 28, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Fiction and Poetry Award Honor Book

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“Hidden throughout this moving novel in verse, old stories are discovered like buried treasures.” KIRKUS
“Bruchac , who is Abenaki, pens a spare novel-in-verse that richly addresses an array of subjects, including Wabanaki legends and beliefs, residential schools, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the difficulties of online schooling with insecure Wi-Fi.” Publishers Weekly

Malian loves spending time with her grandparents at their home on a Wabanaki reservation. She’s there for a visit when, suddenly, all travel shuts down. There’s a new virus making people sick, and Malian will have to stay with her grandparents for the duration.

Everyone is worried about the pandemic, but Malian knows how to keep her family and community safe: She protects her grandparents, and they protect her. She doesn’t go outside to play with friends, she helps her grandparents use video chat, and she listens to and learns from their stories. And when Malsum, one of the dogs living on the rez, shows up at their door, Malian’s family knows that he’ll protect them too.

Told in verse inspired by oral storytelling, this novel about the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the ways Malian’s community has cared for one another through plagues of the past, and how they keep caring for one another today.

Find out more about the author, and listen to him read some of his poems, on his website:
https://www.josephbruchac.com 

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Fiction, Poetry/Tales Tagged With: MG, middle-grade, verse

Ready for Spaghetti: Funny Poems for Funny Kids by Michael Rosen ill. Polly Dunbar

June 7, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 8 Jun 2022

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A really delightful collection of poems for reading aloud to very young children, and for slightly older children to begin to read for themselves, especially after they have become familiar with listening to them time and time again.

Fizzing with rhythm, energy and laughter, the 30 poems here delight in the details of children’s daily routines. “Up, up, uppity-up!”, the first poem announces, while the artwork shows a child leaping out of bed, ready to begin their morning; “Hush and a hush, soft and low”, chants the final poem, as children snuggle under their blankets after their day’s adventures.

Full of affectionate observations of young children, which are beautifully continued in Polly Dunbar’s warm-hearted pictures, Michael Rosen’s poems are ideal for reading aloud with toddlers… and many grown-ups will soon know them by heart!

I love this picture of Michael dunking a biscuit alongside the illustrator Polly Dunbar (on her Instagram feed):

 

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A post shared by Polly Dunbar (@pollydunbar)

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Poetry/Tales

Cloud Soup: Poems for Children by Kate Wakeling ill. Elina Braslina

May 4, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

Shortlisted for 2022 CLiPPA Award

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Bake a weird cake, pay a visit to the Deep, and get some inspiration for your very own word hoard! Anything is possible in the world of Cloud Soup, Kate Wakeling’s breathlessly imaginative collection of poems for children.

Quieter poems sit alongside riotously funny ones in this sequel to Moon Juice. Readers are encouraged to look more closely at clouds, water, dust and trees, and to reflect on the knottier areas of life.

Follow the illustrator on Instagram:

 

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A post shared by Elīna Brasliņa (@elinabraslina)

Filed Under: Poetry/Tales

Over to You! by Roger McGough

May 2, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 2 May 2022

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A brand new collection for children from poet, writer and broadcaster, Roger McGough

Just when you are ready to write your first poem, along come the words and cause mayhem! ‘Poems can be like that sometimes,’ says Roger McGough.
Here Roger’s witty poems take you from school and home to places far and wide, and back again just in time to finish the poem you first started.

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Poetry/Tales

The Crab Ballet by Renee LaTulippe ill. Cecile Metzger

April 25, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

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“Enhanced by poetry in rhyme, this spectacular ocean ballet fairly sings when read aloud… LaTulippe weaves plenty of French and English ballet terms (pas de chat, arabesque, fifth position, etc.) into the text and defines them in a skillfully child-friendly closing glossary. Metzger’s delicate watercolor illustrations use a palette dominated by the trademark elegant pinks of ballet costumes and have all the softness of ballerina tulle. A fun introduction to ballet that will also inspire an appreciation for marine life.” KIRKUS

A beautifully designed rhyming picture book from Cameron Books.

A spectacular seaside show, starring dancing crabs, an aquatic corps de ballet, and a cast of French ballet terms.

When the tide is out the curtain is up on this clever tale of an underwater, watercolor ballet featuring dancing crabs and all of their aquatic friends Welcome. Enter. Sit right there. The Crab Ballet is about to begin!

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A post shared by cécile metzger (@coucou_illustration)

And if, like me, you love Edinburgh you will enjoy this short film made by Cécile after a return trip to the city where she had spent a few years starting out as an illustrator:

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A post shared by Renée M. LaTulippe (@renee_m_latulippe)

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Illustrated, Poetry/Tales

A World Full of Nature Stories: 50 Folktales and Legends by Angela McAllister ill. Hannah Bess Ross

April 6, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 6 Apr 2022

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This rich resource collects together folk tales from home and legends and myths from distant lands to commemorate the animals, plants and the changing seasons that make planet Earth so beautiful. The anthology contains:

– The Peruvian tale of Cuniraya and the Magic Fruit
– The story of how lightning began according to an ancient Khasi folk tale from India
– From Ireland, the story of The Bee, the Mouse and the Beetle
– The Master of the Winds in the ancient Iroquois story of The Four Winds
– Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack from North American folklore
– Spain’s Queen of the Flowers, who is brought to life one night by a magical fairy.

sample page spread

Lively retellings from best-selling author Angela McAllister are brought to life with beautiful illustrations from Hannah Bess Ross.

Follow the illustrator on Instagram:

 

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A post shared by Hannah Bess Ross (@hannahbessross)

And follow the writer there too:

 

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A post shared by Angela McAllister (@angelamcallisterbooks)

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Poetry/Tales

John Agard’s Windrush Child by John Agard ill. Sophie Bass

March 14, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day Mon 14 Mar 2020

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With one last hug, Windrush chid waves goodbye to his Caribbean home and sets sail across the ocean to Britain. In this powerful picture book, full of hope and promise, poet John Agard and illustrator Sophie Bass movingly evoke the journey made by children and their families as part of the Windrush Generation.

You can read the full text of the poem here…

Sophie Bass, of mixed British and Trinidadian heritage, is the perfect choice of illustrator. Here is what she told gal-dam in a feature a few years ago:

Sophie says her Trini heritage continues to influence her work, something apparent when observing the colour and patterns and inexhaustible vibrancy of her illustrations. Particularly central is the music. Sophie describes sound system culture as in her blood. “It’s a culture built upon the foundations of unity: dub, dancehall, soca, and all the British off shoots of that like jungle, drum and bass, dubstep. They are what my work celebrates, even if it’s on another subject matter. It’s that spirit and energy that I always have in my heart when I’m creating.’

Follow Sophie on Instagram:

 

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A post shared by Sophie Bass (@sophiebass_illustration)

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Poetry/Tales

Round and Round the Garden: A First Book of Nursery Rhymes by Shirley Hughes

March 4, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 4 Mar 2022

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It is with deepest sorrow that we announce that Shirley died peacefully in her sleep at home on Friday 25th February.

Ed, Tom and Clara
Shirley’s children

Photo credit Lizzie Mayson pic.twitter.com/INWppaf9vB

— Shirley Hughes (@ShirleyHughes_) March 2, 2022

In honour of Shirley Hughes, whose death at the age of 94 was announced earlier this week, we select this  marvellous collection of nursery rhymes as the ACHUKA Book of the Day.

We have also established an obituaries listings page.

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Gift, Illustrated, Poetry/Tales

When Creature Met Creature by John Agard ill. Satoshi Kitamura

February 28, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 1 Mar 2022

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A powerful picture book about communicating emotions and relating to fellow creatures, from an award-winning duo. Creature-of-No-Words lives a happy life on his own, but one day he gets a feeling like ‘the chill touch of ice’ and nothing can lift his sadness. Just then Creature-of-Words arrives and senses his despair. How can she help him communicate and become happy again?

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Illustrated, Poetry/Tales

Nutty Nonsense by Colin West

February 10, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 11 Feb 2022

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From the Publisher

The country’s best — and shockingly undervalued — nonsense poet has compiled a collection of his most popular poems and added new illustrations to help out a children’s literature charity (see below). The result is just under a hundred pages of unrivalled entertainment. You won’t find a dud verse anywhere. Here’s one, turned to at random, Hedgehog’s Valentine:

If you’re sickly,
Feeling prickly,
As your trickly
Tears fall thickly,
Don’t act fickly,
Kiss me quickly,
You’ll feel tickly,
Not so prickly,
And partickly
Far from sickly.

For everyone who enjoys their nonsense nonsensical, their rhymes rhythmical (one of the areas in which West is outstanding) and their pictures picturesque, Colin West has dusted down and polished up some of his funniest poems, and added brand new drawings for this collection of Nutty Nonsense. It’s full of amusing characters – step up Norton Norton and his amazing nostrils, accident prone Uncle Harry, and a lighthouse keeper with an enormous family. You’ll also meet fabulous creatures, such as the friendly-looking (but always hungry) Ogglewop, and the fearsome, nocturnal Blunderblat. There’s  the mysterious Wobble-Dee-Woo, a nautical cat named Shivermetimbers, and many more crazy creations.

Published by Poems & Pictures, a small independent publisher of books based in the North of England, established in January 2012.  All profits from sales of the book will go to the Children’s Literature Festivals charity.

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Humour, Poetry/Tales Tagged With: funny, verse

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