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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8–A young writer's daily experiences and concerns are folded into poems to which many readers can relate. For example, in "Bad Weather," the narrator presents a forecast for the school week, predicting "...a big term paper/due to arrive on Monday morning," followed by "intense…grammar drills" on Tuesday, the arrival of "the state writing test" on Wednesday,"…a high probability/of five-paragraph essays" on Thursday, and, finally, on Friday, "…some relief/when scattered poetry blows in." Varied in mood and tone, the offerings entertain as they celebrate words and language. A grandmother's "Memory Loss" is compared to crossing a river, as "She steps from word to word/until suddenly/she stops in the middle, disoriented." "Poetry" is described as a "sugar-crazed teenager/who just got a license/but refuses to follow/the rules of the road./…It embarrasses everyone/by telling the truth." What emerges is a picture of a young writer at work, looking closely at the world, making connections, and seeing the depth and beauty of everyday events and people. Ward's black-and-white illustrations use a variety of mediums, including pencil, photography, computer-generated images, and ink. Many aspiring poets will see the reflection of their own creative spirits and aspirations in this lovely collection.–Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gr. 3-5. Like Fletcher's I Am Wings (1994) and Relatively Speaking (1999), this mock-autobiographical collection unpretentiously demonstrates how poems can transform the daily experiences of a child's life into dead-on truth bombs. "You can't write a poem / about a squished squirrel / my teacher insisted, / but I don't think that's true," observes Fletcher's endearing (and most likely male) narrator, who pens 27 primarily free-verse poems on many topics, from roadkill and Venus's-flytraps to weightier subjects such as a grandmother's senility. All subvert the notion that poetry requires lofty themes and rarified language; many satirize the dry, technical manner in which the genre is often taught, involving rote memorization of forms (which the narrator imagines getting munched by a poem-gobbler, whose ingestion of haiku, cinquains, and sonnets require "some onomatopoeia / to cure a case of diarrhea"). Some readers may wish for flashier visuals than the understated, black-and-white drawings and photos, but others will find inspiration here to declare, like Fletcher's confident young writer, that "poems are not extinct." Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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More About the Author
Ralph Fletcher is a friend of young writers and readers as well as writing teachers. He has written or co-authored many books for writing teachers includng Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide, Teaching the Qualities of Writing, Lessons for the Writer's Notebook, Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices, and Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing. Ralph has worked with teachers around the U.S. and abroad, helping them find wiser ways of teaching writing.
Ralph's many books for students include picture books (Twilight Comes Twice, Hello Harvest Moon, and The Sandman), novels (Fig Pudding, Flying Solo, and Spider Boy), poetry (A Writing Kind of Day and Moving Day), and a memoir, Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid. His novel Uncle Daddy was awarded the Christopher medal in 2002. He has also written a popular series of books for young writers including Poetry Matters, Live Writing, and A Writer's Notebook. Ralph lives with his family in New Hampshire. He is a strong environmentalist who believes we all must work together to live in a more sustainable way. His other passions include travel, good food, dark chocolate, growing orchids, and sports.
Ralph's many books for students include picture books (Twilight Comes Twice, Hello Harvest Moon, and The Sandman), novels (Fig Pudding, Flying Solo, and Spider Boy), poetry (A Writing Kind of Day and Moving Day), and a memoir, Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid. His novel Uncle Daddy was awarded the Christopher medal in 2002. He has also written a popular series of books for young writers including Poetry Matters, Live Writing, and A Writer's Notebook. Ralph lives with his family in New Hampshire. He is a strong environmentalist who believes we all must work together to live in a more sustainable way. His other passions include travel, good food, dark chocolate, growing orchids, and sports.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
poems for guys,
By
This review is from: A Writing Kind of Day (Hardcover)
If you have a hard-hearted middle school boy who might be a poet, this book is just the thing to get them writing. Illustrations are terrific, the poems are funny, real, from the heart, not a sappy one in the batch. For teachers struggling to get boys to write poems, this will surely do the trick. Use it with Jack Prelutsky's new book, READ A RHYME WRITE A RHYME and you'll have the whole class turning out poems.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great poetry,
By G&S Mommy (Oaks, PA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Writing Kind of Day (Hardcover)
My students loved the poetry in this book. Fun, serious, all types! Great for imagery!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Mentor Text for Classroom Teachers,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Writing Kind Of Day: Poems for Young Poets (Paperback)
I teach high school English and am very found of mentor texts. Fletcher is the KING of mentor texts. His work is used throughout the year in my classroom. This text is easily accessible and great for starting quick-writes. I highly recommend it!
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Inside This Book
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Citations (learn more)
2
books
cite this book:
- Writing Sense: Integrated Reading and Writing Lessons for English Language Learners by Juli Kendall on page 136, and Back Matter
- Learning Under the Influence of Language and Literature: Making the Most of Read-Alouds Across the Day by Lester L. Laminack on page 127
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