Troy Thompson's Excellent Peotry Book [Hardcover]

Gary Crew (Author), Craig Smith (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Troy Thompson's Excellent Poetry Book follows Troy Thompson, a Year 6 student in Ms. Kranke's English class in Dagaburra, Australia. Read his assignments, his work, his teacher's comments, and step into the head of a twelve-year-old Australian boy as he has his first experience with poetry.Moving, silly (and sometimes just a little gross), Troy Thompson's Excellent Peotry Book is more than an introduction to poetry for children. It can be read as a narrative, or used as an easy-to-follow classroom guide for teachers. Divided into assignnments and peppered with Troy's own doodles and margin comments, poetry (or peotry) has never been so much fun.Whether he's dedicating a ballad to his girlfriend Kylie or revealing the heroic and moving death of his policeman father, Ms. Kranke obviously has a great deal of affection for both Troy and his poems - someting readers will understand perfectly.In this painless introduction to poetry -- sorry, peotry -- Aussie sixth-grader Troy Thompson does his best to keep up with Ms. Kranke's assignments on, variously, the haiku, the ballad, the limerick, the sonnet, occasional poems, concrete poetry, the ode and the acrostic. Ms. Kranke's encouraging instructions are juxtaposed to hilarious effect with Troy's scatalogical word lists, wild illustrations and manful efforts to actually write poems. - Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2003 (hardcover)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7-At the beginning of sixth grade, Ms. Kranke introduces her students to a yearlong assignment in which they will learn about different forms of poetry and write their own. The best poems will be entered in a contest at the end of the year. One of the students, Troy Thompson, is a smart, funny kid who has had his share of heartache. He includes a ballad and a sonnet about his father, a police officer who was killed while on duty. Readers learn about his dogs, Ferris and Bueller, in haiku and limericks, and of his girlfriend through ballads and acrostic poems. He also writes poems about stinky sneakers, the condition of the boys' bathroom, and smarmy game-show hosts. Troy enters a sonnet about his teacher in the contest and readers learn, through a photo on the final page, that he won the grand prize-a computer. This colorful book resembles a student's notebook. Left-hand pages contain Ms. Kranke's instructions, while those on the right show Troy's poetry and whimsical mixed-media illustrations. The poems are typewritten, handwritten, or printed from a computer and "pasted" into his book. This title is complete with silliness and serious topics. Display and booktalk it with Sharon Creech's Love That Dog (HarperCollins, 2001).
Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WI
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Review

"This title is complete with silliness and serious topics." --- School Library Journal

"In this painless introduction to poetry -- sorry, 'peotry' -- Aussie sixth-grader Troy Thompson does his best to keep up with Ms. Kranke's assignments on, variously, the haiku, the ballad, the limerick, the sonnet, occasional poems, concrete poetry, the ode and the acrostic. Ms. Kranke's encouraging instructions are juxtaposed to hilarious effect with Troy's scatological word lists, wild illustrations and manful efforts to actually write poems." --- Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 35 pages
• Publisher: Kane/Miller Book Pub (August 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929132522
• ISBN-13: 978-1929132522
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,028,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)