Module 3: Poetry

 

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grimes,Nikki. 2006,. THANKS A MILLION, Harper Collins. ISBN 9780688172923

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

Thanks a Million by Nikki Grimes is a collection of poems in which they follow a young boy named Michael. Throughout the book Michael receives nice gestures from the people around him, and he is genuinely grateful for the kindness he receives from other people. He talks about many experiences and the joy and gratitude that it brings him to be able to feel it in big or small ways. As he continues his journey we learn that empathy and kindness are big factors in his collection of poems. 

In the end he realizes that it's not all about saying “thank you” but spreading kindness and making the most out of the small moments and mundane moments and the small acts of kindness that we can do for others. 

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Thanks a Million provides us with a theme of gratitude throughout the poems, no matter what is happening there is always something to be thankful for, even in the mundane moments of looking up at trees and being thankful. Throughout the poems we can see that our main character, Michael, is growing into a person who is thankful for many moments but then learns how he can be the person who shares kindness with others, and even empathy. This becomes a moment in which readers can connect with him, he begins his journey at school and then we get to see moments of him in his community ending with his community eating at a table of “thanks”.While we are learning his journey we can feel the moments with him based on the illustrations provided in the book, we can see the details and depictions of the moments he highlights for his “thanks” and gratefulness for them. Grimes style of writing the emotional and sensory details make it easy for readers to follow along with the story. 

Overall, “Thanks a Million” by Nikki Grimes gives us an overall feel of the kindness and thoughtfulness spread throughout the book and how much of an impact it can make on someone's life. 

 

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Kirkus Reviews

Gratitude for simple pleasures and small kindnesses is the theme of Grimes's newest collection of poems. A child thanks his teacher for helping him "hate math 1/2 as much as he used to"; a new boy in school shares his pie with a classmate who welcomes him; a mother sends her daughter an appreciative lunchbox love note; and a young girl writes to an author expressing her appreciation for a book that touched her heart. Grimes employs quite a potpourri of forms and rhyme schemes, including a rebus, matching them carefully to the mood. The poems are presented on one or two-page spreads surrounded by Cabrera's vibrant acrylic paintings that add pop and personality. One can envision this collection stimulating discussions about the need to say "thank you," as well as encouraging young writers to try their hand at expressing their thoughts in poetry. Good job. (Picture book/poetry. 6-10)

School Library Journal (March 1, 2006)

K-Gr 4-Sixteen thoughtful poems about being thankful for everyday things. Grimes uses a variety of forms that include haiku, a riddle, and a rebus in selections that speak directly to the experiences of young children. In "Lunch Box Love Notes," a big sister sometimes resents having to watch out for her baby brother, but a note left in her lunch box by her mother thanking her "for taking such good care of Ray" makes it worthwhile. "Dear Teacher" closes, "Signed, David/who only hates math/ as much/as he used to." "A Lesson from the Deaf" simply and eloquently describes saying thank you in sign language. Cabrera's acrylic illustrations are distinctive, folksy, and effective. The art for "Mystery" is particularly effective, showcasing 42 children of different ethnicities in small, rectangular portraits. A lovely book for reflection and discussion.-Mary N. Oluonye, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

5. CONNECTIONS

*Poetry: this is a good book to make poetry connections and even have students try to write their own. 

*This is  a great resource for teaching empathy, gratitude and the joy  of finding them in the small or big moments in our lives.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Engle, Margarita. 2017.THE FIREFLY LETTERS, Square Fish/Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805090826 

 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

In “The Firefly Letters”, we see three main characters Cecilia who is a young enslaved girl, Elena who is a wealthy daughter of a sugar plantation owner and Fedrika who is a Swedish writer and a woman who is a strong advocate for women. 

As we begin to read the poems we can see the journey that all three of them have intertwined with each other, and the adversity they have had to overcome.Fredrika has come to Cuba with the purpose to enjoy the culture, and its people. She soon realizes the many injustices that take place there, such as slavery and how they are treated. Fedrika soon becomes close with an enslaved girl Cecilia, and admires how strong and resilient she has become even after  everything that has happened.

In the meantime Elena also builds a bond with Cecilia, and soon enough is challenged by her own beliefs on how she has been raised and is challenged by now seeing what Cecilia has gone through to change the future. 

Overall we can see how all of these three women are showing resilience, strength and how they face adversity no matter their life differences. 

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In “The Firefly Letters”, Engle offers us a wealthy intertwined story of 3 women who are in Cuba and are going through their very own adversity, whether that is advocating for the injustices, living through it or working to change their thoughts and challenging themselves with it. We see the characters develop as the journey progresses through the poem like letters, how social injustice is addressed and women empowerment is seen throughout it.

Engle does an excellent job at being authentic to the culture and is sensitive to the fact of how she approaches topics such as slavery, and the adversity faced by our characters within their either privilege, oppression or shedding light on the effects of slavery and really being able to depict the harsh reality of it.

Overall “The Firefly Letters”, is a captivating book in which we see a lot of character development, the injustices in Cuba, women empowerment, making the reader see the struggle of ongoing oppression, and how we can reflect and fight for freedom and equality. 

 

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) 

Kirkus Reviews

“Three women, their lives circumscribed by their societies' expectations, came together in Cuba in 1851. Fredrika Bremer, an advocate for women's rights, escapes her confining upper-class life in Sweden by traveling the world. Cecilia, an enslaved teenager longing for her African home, lives with the knowledge that her father exchanged her for a stolen cow. And 12-year-old Cubana Elena feels trapped in her wealthy existence, she and her mother moving "like shadows / lost in their private world / of silk and lace." The free-verse novel effectively alternates the voices of the three protagonists (with a fourth voice for Beni, Cecilia's husband) and demonstrates how each character affects the others, all learning a measure of freedom in their roaming the island, Fredrika always recording her observations in letters and diaries by the light of Cuban fireflies resting on her fingers. And like the firefly light, Engle's poetry is a gossamer thread of subtle beauty weaving together three memorable characters who together find hope and courage. Another fine volume by a master of the novel in verse. (historical note, author's note) (Historical fiction. 10 & up)”

Horn Book Magazine (March/April, 2010)

Based on the letters and diaries of Fredrika Bremer, a mid-nineteenth-century Swedish feminist and traveler, this novel is set in Cuba. In 1851 Bremer spent three months in Cuba writing, sketching, and interviewing, visiting slaves, free blacks, and poor whites. Engle expands Bremer's mentions of Cecilia, a young slave, and invents the character of Elena, the slave-owner's adolescent daughter. The imagistic, multiple first-person narrative works handily in revealing Bremer, an alert and intelligent woman in rebellion against her background of privilege. The poetic technique also serves Cecilia well. The stark facts of her life, being sold by her father in exchange for a cow, expand into the white space on the pages, creating their own emotional resonance. Elena's story, however, one of moral awakening, is thin. "I _don't know how or why / it happened, / but somehow / I have begun / to think of Cecilia / as my best friend." A fully realized scene would have made Engle's "somehow" more plausible and powerful. In this case, fiction is less vibrant than the author's deftly crafted narrative of historical fact.

5. CONNECTIONS

• Social emotional; facing adversity and overcoming difficult situations with resilience

 

• If you feel comfortable enough in leading conversations about women empowerment and women's rights this would be a good book to start the conversation

   1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Engle, Margarita. 2008. THE SURRENDER TREE HenryHolt&Co. ISBN 9780805086744

 

2. PLOT SUMMARY

In “The Surrender Tree” this five part story plot begins with a nurse named Rosa, during 1868 Cuba had declared their independence against Spain therefore having plantation owners free their slaves. Not even twenty eight years later the slaves were told to leave their farms, if anyone was found they would be killed. Rosa aids those in need, not knowing that it would change some of the beliefs she grew up in. 

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Engle does an excellent job in making it easy for the reader to keep up with the story, by using Lieutenant Death, Rosa, Jose and Silvas as titles for her poems so that we know who it pertains to. Through her vivid descriptions we are able to capture the essence of the time period and the hardships that the people had to go through. Rosa remains steadfast in being a healer to those that are wounded, and we see many perspectives in the Cuban struggle for freedom. 

Engle has a way with the structure of her poems, and is able to help the reader understand while immersing us with the sounds, sights and emotions of the time. The many themes that Engle makes the readers aware of such as resilience, solidarity and opposition can resonate with readers who may have gone through a similar journey or find themselves being empathetic to those who have gone through it. Engles message may reach many who it will inspire and empower to be the change in the world.

 

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Booklist starred (March 15, 2008 (Vol. 104, No. 14))

Grades 6-12. As in The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006), Engle's new book is written in clear, short lines of stirring free verse. This time she draws on her own Cuban American roots, including stories from her grandmother, to describe those who fought in the nineteenth-century Cuban struggle for independence. At the center is Rosa, a traditional healer, who nurses runaway slaves and deserters in caves and other secret hideaways. Her husband, José, a freed slave, also speaks, and so does a refugee child, whom Rosa teaches to be a healer. Then there is the vicious slave hunter known as Lieutenant Death; his collection of ears is an unforgettable image of brutality (“shown as proof that the runaway slave died fighting, resisting capture”). The switching perspectives personalize the dramatic political history, including the establishment of the world’s first “reconcentration camps” to hold prisoners, as well as the role of slave owners who freed their slaves and joined the resistance against Spain. Many readers will be caught by the compelling narrative voices and want to pursue the historical accounts in Engle’s bibliography.

Horn Book Guide starred (September, 2008)

Between 1868 and 1898, Cuba fought three wars to gain independence. Engle uses these historical events to craft a powerful free-verse narrative told through soliloquies of various revolutionary characters, including folk heroine Rosa la Bayamesa, a former slave and healer. Engle's haunting poetry explores themes of oppression, war, and human rights through the lens of one woman's determination. Timeline. Bib.

Kirkus Reviews (March 15, 2008)

Tales of political dissent can prove, at times, to be challenging reads for youngsters, but this fictionalized version of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain may act as an entry to the form. The poems offer rich character portraits through concise, heightened language, and their order within the cycle provides suspense. Four characters tell the bulk of the story: Rosa, a child who grows up to be a nurse who heals the wounded, sick and starving with herbal medicine; her husband, José, who helps her move makeshift hospitals from cave to cave; Silvia, an orphaned girl who escapes a slave camp so that she may learn from Rosa; and Lieutenant Death, a hardened boy who grows up wanting only to kill Rosa and all others like her. Stretching from 1850 to 1899, these poems convey the fierce desire of the Cuban people to be free. Young readers will come away inspired by these portraits of courageous ordinary people. (author's note, historical note, chronology, references) (Fiction/poetry. 12+) 

5. CONNECTIONS

*Cuban history: we can make connections to the historical times of Cuba going through this hardship. 

*Social justice and activism, how we can be active members in our community to fight for equity. 

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Woodson, Jacqueline. 2016. BROWN GIRL DREAMING PuffinBooks. ISBN 9780399252518

 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

In this book of poetry, Woodson tells the story of her childhood as an African American girl in the 1960s’-1970’s. She begins by telling us her story starting from birth and eventually growing up and knowing the hardships that her family had to endure when they decided to move from the South to the North. She wrestles with her identity and questions her belonging to her own heritage and while thinking of this she goes to school in the south to be closer to her family and is found with issues regarding Jim Crow laws, whilst segregation and discrimination being a big factor for her wanting to find her own voice, and identity in order to be a stronger advocate for herself.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Woodson begins the book by showing us two family trees to give the reader some background knowledge about who we will be experiencing when reading this book and give us an insight into how our main character came to be. Woodson has a way with her words, she is able to get the reader to feel how deep her words are especially when talking about Civil Rights activists and comparing their experiences to what she is now facing and if she will overcome it. 

Woodson uses lots of language that helps the reader with imagery and the emotions that she must have felt, making us empathetic to her experiences. Her art of storytelling helps us understand how finding her voice was pivotal to her finding her identity within her heritage.

In this captivating story Woodson is able to keep the reader following the story while embedding us with the emotions as we go through this childhood journey with her and getting to hear her voice and identity in it.

 

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Horn Book (4/1/15)

“A memoir-in-verse so immediate, readers will feel they are experiencing Woodson's childhood along with her. We see young Jackie grow up not just in historical context but also in the context of extended family, community, and religion (she was raised Jehovah's Witness). Most notably, we trace her development as a nascent writer. The poetry here sings: specific, lyrical, and full of imagery”.

School Library Journal Starred Review (7/1/14)

“Gr 4-7 "I am born in Ohio but the stories of South Carolina already run like rivers through my veins" writes Woodson as she begins her mesmerizing journey through her early years. She was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1963, "as the South exploded" into a war for civil rights and was raised in South Carolina and then New York. Her perspective on the volatile era in which she grew up is thoughtfully expressed in powerfully effective verse, (Martin Luther King is ready to march on Washington; Malcom X speaks about revolution; Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat only seven years earlier and three years have passed since Ruby Bridges walks into an all-white school). She experienced firsthand the acute differences in how the "colored" were treated in the North and South. "After the night falls and it is safe for brown people to leave the South without getting stopped and sometimes beaten and always questioned; We board the Greyhound bus bound for Ohio." She related her difficulties with reading as a child and living in the shadow of her brilliant older sister; she never abandoned her dream of becoming a writer. With exquisite metaphorical verse Woodson weaves a patchwork of her life experience, from her supportive, loving maternal grandparents, her mother's insistence on good grammar, to the lifetime friend she meets in New York, that covers readers with a warmth and sensitivity no child should miss. This should be on every library shelf.&12; D. Maria LaRocco, Cuyahoga Public Library, Strongsville, OH”

Kirkus Reviews starred (July 15, 2014)

“A multi award--winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer. Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America was "a country caught / / between Black and White." But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father's people in Ohio and her mother's people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah's Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe's Stevie and Langston Hughes' poetry, and  seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that "[W]ords are my brilliance." Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned. For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)”

 

5. CONNECTIONS

*Discrimination and prejudice, this can lead to conversations about how we should treat others and learn from the past to become better human beings.

*This would be a great book to begin a conversation about social awareness, to learn each other's differences so that we know how to live in a world where we are able to coexist. 

*Civil rights, human rights: this would be a great start in starting conversations about the civil rights movement, and how even now there are times we see discrimination still happen and what we can do to advocate for change.