Poetry Friday

I love exploring new books of poetry.  I used to flood my classroom with poetry books every year during April  This past year, I still maxed out my library card and filled the trunk of my car with bins of poetry books during April and May for our after school book club meetings.  

I checked out Cold Stars and Fireflies:  Poems of the Four Seasons several years ago during poetry month.  I liked the book so much that I purchased my own copy from Amazon.  I've returned most of the poetry books I checked out for poetry month, but rechecked three of Esbensen's poetry books to peruse at my leisure:   Echoes for the Eye, Words with Wrinkled Knees, and Who Shrank My Grandmother's House?   

Here's a perfect poem to kick off  summer from Esbensen's book Cold Stars and Fireflies:

After exploring these new (to me) books by Esbensen, it is easy to see why she won the 10th NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children in 1994.  If you'd like to explore other poems by poets who have won the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for children, check out Another Jar of Tiny Stars edited by Bernice Cullinan and Deborah Wooten.  One of the things I love about this book is that the poems were selected by children.  Hopefully, they will update the book again to include additional poets who have won the award since 2010.

I'm so grateful for this community where we celebrate poetry every week of the year.  Head over to Matt's blog at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme for this week's roundup of poetry love.