Friday, October 7, 2011

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday Round Up is hosted today by Great Kid Books.

My selection is Tap Dancing on the Roof: sijo (poems) written by Linda Sue Park with pictures by Istvan Banyai.


Park, 2002 Newbery Medalist for her book A Single Shard, introduces readers to the Korean sijo. A sijo is similar to the more familiar haiku in that it has a well-defined structure, but this form of poetry is designed to surprise the reader with an ironic twist or joke as the last line.

If this sounds like fun, it is. Park explores a variety of subjects that are familiar and engaging for her young readers. Banyai's loosely drawn illustrations feel effortless and are a perfect, playful compliment to the text.

An Author's Note, Historical Background, Further Reading, and Tips for writing a sijo complete the book.

4 comments:

GatheringBooks said...

I've heard so much about Linda Sue Park - I have got to find her books, particularly this one, since I am also a huge fan of Istvan Banyai. I particularly enjoy his wordless picture books which we have featured extensively sometime March/April I think of this year when we had our wordless picture book theme. I love Banyai's play in perspective and it would be interesting to see how he illustrated verse. Thanks for sharing this.

Steven Withrow said...

This is a great, great book -- I recommend it often to kids (and grownups) who love haiku. Thanks for sharing!

Marjorie said...

I absolutely love everything about this book. And I was delighted when my younger son, quite a while after we'd read it together, came out with the title poem when I was trying to explain long division to him. Once he'd connected it with the poem, he got the hang of it straight away!

Kerry Aradhya said...

I don't own too too many poetry books for children, but I have this one and love it! I recently read A Single Shard and couldn't put it down until I was done. Yeah for Linda Sue Park!

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