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Michelle Heidenrich Barnes

Michele Krueger

The Best of Today's Little Ditty: 2014-2015 (Volume 1) Paperback – November 15, 2016

by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes (Author)

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Today’s Little Ditty is more than a children’s poetry blog, it’s a poetry playground. Each month, a lively community of writers, teachers, librarians, and poetry-appreciators gathers to take part in the Ditty of the Month Club (DMC). Writing to prompts by successful authors and editors, they participate for the camaraderie, and for the joy and craft of writing poetry.

In The Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2014-2015, thirteen “ditty” challenges by contemporary children’s authors, including Nikki Grimes, Lee Bennett Hopkins, J. Patrick Lewis, Joyce Sidman, Margarita Engle, Kwame Alexander, and others, have inspired these 75 poems, deemed “best” by their peers. They range from lighthearted to thought-provoking and appeal to a wide audience, from children to adults. Join the fun at michellehbarnes.blogspot.com.

What people are saying about Today’s Little Ditty and the Ditty of the Month Club:

“ ‘Poetry is prose, bent out of shape,’ I like to say, and for proof, you need only connect with Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s Ditty of the Month Club, where children’s poets are busy flexing their poetic muscles through the use of various verse forms. They are not showing off; they’re practicing. And they invite you to do the same.”

— J. Patrick Lewis, former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate (2011-2013) and recipient of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children

“The Ditty of the Month Club . . . gives my students a way to participate and be celebrated as practicing poets.”

— Margaret G. Simon, teacher of gifted studies and recipient of the 2014 NCTE Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing

“Today's Little Ditty is an amazing resource in the blogging community of poetry for young people with more than 500 posts that invite us to learn, try, pause, write, celebrate, read, think, and revel in poetry and all it has to offer us in our uber-busy lives.”

— Dr. Sylvia Vardell, professor of children’s literature at Texas Woman’s University and recipient of the 2014 Scholastic Library Publishing Award for her work in the field

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes is an award-winning children's poet and anthologist. Her work appears in magazines and anthologies, including One Minute till Bedtime (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), Here We Go and The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (Pomelo Books), and forthcoming collections from Charlesbridge and National Geographic. She has been blogging about poetry at Today’s Little Ditty since 2013.

Product details

Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (November 15, 2016)
Language : English
Paperback : 98 pages
ISBN-10 : 1535384336
ISBN-13 : 978-1535384339
Item Weight : 5 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.23 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,053,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,191 in Poetry Anthologies (Books)

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Janet Clare F.

This is a terrific book to read

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2016

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This is a terrific book to read, to savor, to share, to learn from and to give to teachers!! Today's Little Ditty blog encourages everyone to write poetry, share and learn. Each month a poet offers a challenge and all are free to share their poems. Michelle posts examples daily during the month. It is a delightful place to learn and share. Michelle interviews the poet who offers the challenge, so you get to "know" the poet in a new and interesting way. She also shares helpful book information, too. I am honored to have a poem selected for this collection along side so many Poetry Friday friends I admire and revere ! I have used a couple of the challenges with elementary students and think this book would be a very useful guide for teachers.

3 people found this helpful

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McM

... feel blessed to have a poem represented in this amazing anthology, along with such talented ppets

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016

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I feel blessed to have a poem represented in this amazing anthology, along with such talented ppets. A great gift for family and friends , a collection of truly amazing poems, spaning a multitude of forms and seasons.

One person found this helpful

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bookworm

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2017

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This collection includes poems that both children and adults will enjoy. Some of the authors are widely recognized. Others less so, but talented. The lovely cover and easy reading make the book a good candidate for coffee table display.

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Donna Smith

Some Pretty Ditties in Here!

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2018

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Yes, I have a poem in here... but I'd still say it was the happiest anthology around! Poets created poems from monthly writing challenges, and the best of the ditties are compiled here.

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K. Berman

Lovely book from some of the best poets.

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2017

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Wonderful language in each and every poem.

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LPS

Lovely blog-based poetry anthology full of wonderful forms and voices!

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2017

When I heard Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today's Little Ditty was putting together an anthology, I was skeptical. What an enormous amount of work! The logistics alone of gathering poems from many poets published on her blog, gathering permissions, organizing the poems, laying everything out, designing a cover--eeeesh!

But what Michelle does on her blog each month is amazing, featuring an interview with a poet or editor and then a poetry challenge based on a form or topic or theme. Readers write poems to the challenge, and Michelle features those poems on the blog all month. Then...on to the next interview/challenge. It's very cool. So, I was happy to donate a couple of poems. And when my copy arrived...wow!

This is an excellent anthology! I have had so much fun reading through the poems, and I am completely impressed with the range of poems, styles, moods, voices. This would be wonderful to use in the classroom, since it's divided into the challenges (water cinquains, monster haiku, clerihews, kindness poems, etc.) and features a nicely varied selection of poems written to each challenge. It would also be fun for a poet to work his or her way through the book, analyzing what you like or don't like about each poem and then writing your own poem for the challenge. But most of all, and most surprising of all to me, it's just good reading.

Here are just a few short poems from this anthology. (There are some longer ones, too.)

From the zeno challenge:

First storm of autumn: drenching rain,
leaves tumble down.
Branches
sway.
Morning quiet,
darkness
stays.
Changing season
shortens
days.

--Jone Rush MacCulloch

From the monster haiku:

hollow eyes, grave grin
click, clatter-rattle--
bony escapee

--Joyce Ray

And from the deeper wisdom poems:

What Does a Seed Know?

What does a seed know?
To reach for sun, the warmth and light
to wait until the time is right
to send shoots through the earth.

What does a seed know?
That germination takes some time
that soon enough the stem will climb
that flowers mark rebirth.

--Tricia Stohr-Hunt

Aren't those lovely? There are many more excellent poems--some funny, some silly, some beautiful, some heart-breaking. You can order it on Amazon (in paperback or Kindle), and make sure to head over to Michelle's blog to check out her poetry challenges:>)

One person found this helpful

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tarafarah7: Tara Brown

An outstanding classroom resource!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2018

During #NationalPoetryMonth2018, I discovered the amazing Michelle Barnes! I am a teacher of 19 years, and throughout the years, I've learned that kids have mixed feelings about poetry. Some say they love it, some say they don't, but usually their thoughts on it stem from past experiences in how poetry was introduced to them, rather than their actual feelings on the subject. Because they almost always are not able to express why they like or dislike poetry, I've made it a goal of mine to help my students discover the real truth behind those statements. I am a lover of language and self-expression; I feel it is important to provide students with as many opportunities as I can to help them discover ways to best express themselves. I knew that if I wanted them to ultimately look at poetry in a positive light, I needed lessons and activities that were fun, engaging, and thought-provoking. I soon realized the key our success...poetry challenges! Michelle Barnes has a wonderful website and blog that holds an impressive amount of information and opportunities for young poets, teachers, and their students. She created the Ditty of the Month Club and actively hosts monthly poetry challenges, interviews with poets, and giveaways, complete with links to share out and post your own created poems on Padlet. It is free to participate, and all are welcome! She is truly an inspiration to many, and her dedication to helping others goes way beyond what I would ever expect. Her motivation, enthusiasm, and excitement toward poetry is changing lives, and classrooms everywhere are finding success with the engaging activitites and creative resources she provides! Not only is The Best of Today's Little Ditty an excellent poetry anthology to help guide your lessons, but it is also a very enjoyable read! At the end of the year when I, again, ask my students their thoughts and feelings on poetry, I know their answers will be based on authentic lessons and experiences. And, guess what? After all our fun activities, engaging lessons, and proud moments, I'm pretty sure all of them are going to agree that their favorite way to express themselves is through POETRY! Woohoo!

Thank you for reading my review. I hope it was helpful. :-)

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The Best of Today's Little Ditty: 2014-2015 (Volume 1) Paperback – November 15, 2016

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The Best of Today's Little Ditty: 2014-2015 (Volume 1) Paperback – November 15, 2016

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