There's nothing like curling up with a good book, but you have to be careful. Before you know it, a minute turns into an hour, an hour turns into a day, and a day may turn into . . . eternity.
Inspired by the likes of Edward Lear, X. J. Kennedy, and Lewis Carroll, the author of Arithme-Tickle and Scien-Trickery has created a collection of original poems about books and reading that range from sweet to silly to laugh-out-loud funny. Newcomer Kyle M. Stone's clever, witty, and endearing paintings make this the perfect treat for book lovers of all ages.
After nearly three decades as a professor of economics, J. Patrick Lewis turned to poetry. He is the author of more than 75 children's books including A Hippopotamusn't (1990), BoshBlobberBosh (1998), Please Bury Me in the Library (2004), First Dog (2009), Spot the Plot (2009), and The House (2009).
He has recently been named the third U.S. Children's Poet Laureate (2011-2013) by the Poetry Foundation.
His books have been published by Creative Editions, Knopf, Atheneum, Dial, Harcourt, Little, Brown, National Geographic, Chronicle Books, Scholastic, Candlewick, Schwartz & Wade, Holiday House, Sleeping Bear Press, Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, Dawn Publications, and others. Gulls Hold Up the Sky, his first book of adult poems, was published by Laughing Fire Press (2010).
Pat's children's poems have also appeared in CRICKET (26 times), SPIDER, LADYBUG, CICADA, ODYSSEY, RANGER RICK, HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN, Ms. Magazine, YOUR BIG BACKYARD, CREATIVE CLASSROOM, STORYTIME, STORYWORKS, CHICKADEE, AHOY, LANGUAGE ARTS, JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, BOOKBIRD, READING TODAY and over 100 anthologies. He wrote the 1992 National Children's Book Week poem, printed on one million bookmarks and distributed nationally.
Lewis has received numerous awards from the American Library Association, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and others. He was the recipient of the 2010-11 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Excellence in Children's Poetry Award, presented every two years.
WHERE I'LL BE NEXT--Schools, Bookstores, Conferences
October 14-16, 2011 Poetry Foundation--TED Lecture Chicago, Illiniois October 23-25, 2011 NY State Reading Assn. Rye Brook, New York October 28-31, 2011 Keystone State Reading Assn. Lancaster, Pennsylvania November 5, 2011 Buckeye Book Fair Wooster, Ohio November 8, 2011 Ashland University Ashland, Ohio November 15-16, 2011 St. Joseph's College Rensselaer, Indiana November 17-20, 2011 NCTE Convention Chicago, Illinois December 1, 2010 Hillview Elementary Newark, Ohio December 8, 2011 West Chester University (Dan Darigan) West Chester, PA January 18, 2012 Richard Avenue Elementary Grove City, Ohio January 24, 2012 Fouse Elementary Westerville, Ohio March 1-3, 2012 Charlotte Huck Ch. Lit. Conference Redlands, California April 3-5, 2012 Holland Hall Primary Tulsa, Oklahoma April 12, 2012 Washington-Centerville Public Library Centerville, Ohio April 13, 2012 Stingley Elementary Centerville, Ohio April 17-25, 2012 Anglo-American School Moscow, Russia April 29-May 2, 2012 IRA Convention Chicago, Illinois May 10, 2012 Wynford Elementary Bucyrus, Ohio March 22, 2013 OCTELA Conference Columbus, Ohio
This review is from: Please Bury Me in the Library (Hardcover)
I love books, and I also work in a library, so I really had no choice but to see what this book was about when I came across its intriguing title. There is no murder or mayhem in these pages, of course, because Please Bury Me in the Library is very much a children's book - one aimed mostly at fairly young children. This is the kind of a book a parent would read to a young child as the future reader delights in the excellent artwork. Each picture accompanies a poem by J. Patrick Lewis, who throws in an interesting mix of poetic styles: haiku, free verse, rhyming verse, even an acrostic salute to libraries. I wasn't all that impressed by some of the poems, but this is largely due to the fact that they are aimed primarily at fairly young children (and I haven't been fairly young in a good many years now) - these are simple little verses that come across much better when read aloud. I'm sure many children would really enjoy them. It's really the artwork that makes this book special, though. Kyle M. Stone's artwork is both whimsical and a little dark - not scary, of course, but dark in a "Tim Burton was here" sort of way. As an adult, I feel sure that looking at these illustrations is about as close as I can ever come to once again seeing the world through a child's eyes - and that, in my opinion, makes this book a visual treat for young and old alike.
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This review is from: Please Bury Me in the Library (Hardcover)
There is something in Kyle Stone's style that takes one aback at first. It is like looking at a picture you might've drawn once, when you were a child, or dreamed about drawing anyway, before you put your crayon to the paper and finished yet another square house with smoke coming from the chimney.
Stone's illustrations are like that; they come directly, seemingly unvarnished, from the mind of a child, and like the best of childhood they are wild and not altogether safe and just a little bit magical. The fact that Stone could find that place within himself and recover these images is a worthy feat. That he could then execute on these images with such perfect technique is remarkable. There is mastery here; not perhaps fully realized, but certainly in development.
J. Patrick Lewis must be delighted. With Stone's illustrations his words take on a depth and resonance he could hardly have imagined possible.
But in the end it comes down to the children, and after all a child will know instantly if you've got it right. If the children of my acquaintance are any indication, this is a special book. My highest recommendation.
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This review is from: Please Bury Me in the Library (Hardcover)
With regard to Please Bury Me in the Library, the consensus among the teachers here at the Oasis is: This is one of our top ten all-time-favorite books. After reading it, each of us immediately went to the bookstore to buy a copy for her or his classroom.
What is so wonderful, you ask? Everything! The poems are gems, full of witty word-play and humor and an occasional serious moment.
As you might imagine from the title, the poems are about books and reading and words. In "The Big-Word Girl" we meet Elaine who "could not unglue her eyes/ From Webster's Dictionary" (even though she is sits at a horror show-Godzilla Meets Tooth Fairy-with a green monster at her side).
In "Flea-ting Fame" we meet Otto the flea, a "fly-by-night," who is writing by firefly light his "Ottobiography."
Although this is a picture book, it offers something for word lovers of all ages. In "Three Haiku," for example, we read:
Epitaph for a
Devoted Lifelong Reader-
Thank you for the plot
and
Late at night, reading
Frankenstein . . . and suddenly
a pain in the neck.
Kyle M. Stone was the perfect choice as illustrator. The acrylic paintings and mixed media illustrations are as clever and beguiling as the poems they accompany. "What if Books Had Different Names," for example, sits next to a painting of an endearing thin bodied, lobster-bibbed lamb waiting to tuck into a plate of green eggs and spam.
Classroom Uses: Suitable for read-alouds, independent reading, and even middle school classrooms. You may access a teacher's guide from the publisher here.
We took the book into an eighth-grade language arts classroom where it was extremely popular. The students were especially enamored with the illustrations. After reading the poem "Necessary Gardens" (an acrostic spelling out the word "Language'), we had the students write an acrostic about their favorite person, place, or thing and then illustrate their poem.
Highly recommended. Suitable for district-wide purchase.
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