FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jerry Middlebrook, Mary Gutierrez, Robyn Rutland, Sandra Scherbenske, Jason Witherspoon, Austin Stoker, Spring Odiorne, Alison Sagebiel, Alfonso Vargas ... There are 100 poems in this book by 100 poets who wrote their poems when they were in grades one through twelve. These poets are not famous. You have not read their poems before. These poets live anywhere. They are now dentists and dancers and teachers and students and construction workers. They write with fire. They could be you.Jerry Middlebrook, Mary Gutierrez, Robyn Rutland, Sandra Scherbenske, Jason Witherspoon, Austin Stoker, Spring Odiorne, Alison Sagebiel, Alfonso Vargas ... There are 100 poems in this book by 100 poets who wrote their poems when they were in grades one through twelve. These poets are not famous. You have not read their poems before. These poets live anywhere. They are now dentists and dancers and teachers and students and construction workers. They write with fire. They could be you.

Children's Pick of the Lists 2000 and 01 Riverbank Review Magazine's Children's Books of Distinction Award Nominations

Author Biography: In Her Own Words...

Since my books have been some of my best friends all my life, being involved in the making of books is the luckiest, happiest thing I can imagine.

The day Virginia Duncan, my editor for many years now, wrote me her first note stands among my most shining days. She had read some of my poems and asked if I had thought of writing children's books. This is what I tell young writers: when you send your poems out into the world, you have no idea what friends they might find. Thank you, Virginia.

As a child I read all the time. I got lost and found in books,and still do. They are my refuge, escape, my endless journey. (At this moment I have fourteen books on my bedside table and forty-eight books stacked on my dresser.)

I was also fascinated by my mother's small red diary that she had kept as a girl. Her penmanship was exquisitely and perfectly slanted, a talent I did not inherit. She rarely wrote more than "Saw movie. Got new dress." I wanted to know more details. What color was the dress? I would beg, during our steamy afternoons as she peeled peaches for cobbler and I lay on the floor thumbing through her early life. "I have no idea!" she'd exclaim. "You think I can remember everything?"

I started keeping my own notebooks because I wanted to remember everything. The quilt, the cherry tree, the creek. The neat whop of a baseball rammed perfectly with a bat. My father's funny Palestinian stories. The feeling of breeze as my brother and I rode our bicycles down the hill. The blood-red stain of a ripe strawberry on my fingertips; the rich smell of earth at Mueller's Organic Farm a few blocks from our house.

How lucky we were to have a farm in our neighborhood! My first job was picking berries. I thought about poems as I meandered among damp rows. Thirty-four summers later my photographer- husband, Michael, our son, Madison, and I went to pick berries there again, same farm, same fields, same farmers. Suddenly everything in my life connected.

Familiar sights, sounds, smells have always been my necessities. Let someone else think about future goals and professional lives! I will keep track of the bucket and the hoe, billowing leaves, and the clouds drifting in from the horizon.

Whenever someone asks why I write about "ordinary things," I wonder, "Well, what do you have in YOUR life?" Writing saved me when my family moved to Jerusalem, my father's hometown, and during my years at Trinity University in Texas. I have spent twenty-five years working as a visiting writer with students of all ages. I write essays as well as poems, children's books and songs as well as novels and stories for teens. Material is everywhere, free as air.

Now my husband, son, and I live in a house nearly a hundred years old, a block from the little river, in downtown San Antonio. We have a large wrap-around front porch with a swing, good to read in. The most important thing to me about any room is: how are the reading lamps? The new basketball court in our backyard was finished the same week our terrific Spurs team won the 1999 NBA Championship. Sometimes things fit together! Reading and writing help us see all the many ways this is true.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Bryan's (Jump Back, Honey) vibrant, imaginative cover art and section openers raise high expectations, but this volume offers rather less than meets the eye. Representing Nye's (What Have You Lost?) favorite student poems from her 25 years of teaching poetry workshops to schoolchildren, it seems more suitable for forming lesson plans than for the enjoyment of children themselves. The poems suggest familiar workshop techniques (e.g., a number of poems rely on the opening words "I sing" or "I feel like" or "I remember") and, perhaps because they reflect a single teacher's methods and tastes, the collection as a whole seems repetitive, ingratiating or sometimes coy ("We had a/ `Most commonly misspelled word'/ Spelling test ./ Loneliness/ was the only one I got right"). It seems unfair, no matter how well-intentioned, to present these youthful outpourings as accomplished poems, worthy of critical reading. It also raises the question of audience: Nye's self-congratulatory forewords (there are three) and vignettes ("Where is one true word? Where are three?") will better serve teachers than kids, for whom reading this volume may be like plowing through a stack of somebody else's homework. Ages 8-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Children's Literature - Childrens Literature

Because these poems are by ordinary authors of school age, the reader is bound to be inspired, not only by the wonderful images they create, but also by the hope that keeps all writers writing. The variety will appeal to many ages and cultures while exploring themes such as the inner self, family, homes, and the imagination. "My Grandma's Tree," by Sylvia Gomez brings family and nature to life with lyrical lines like--"My Grandma has a tree that cries like a lovely moon hearing the sunshine." John Phillip Santos' grandmother "was massive in her old furs and coffer-stained smiles," while Alfonso Vargas' grandfather "tells [him] a story which gets into [his] heart and stays there." A lost cat is longed for by Jennifer D. Caraway--"I miss his sweet face tinged with light brown and a snowy sugary white that always seemed to be smiling to fill me with love." Linda White reflects on mountains--"I go on top of the mountain and yell Olehehe. I like when the mountain echoes me Olehehe, Olehehe, Olehehe." These poems will rekindle innocence, the love of simple pleasures and earthly treasures. 2000, Greenwillow Books, Ages 8 up, $16.95. Reviewer: Leslie Julia

School Library Journal

Gr 3-8-A unique and well-written collection. While working within various school systems during the 1970s, Nye collected and saved these poems written by students in grades 1-12. In her introduction, she discusses the purpose of poetry in the lives of children and how adults can help young people write and enjoy it. Consisting mainly of free verse, the collection is divided into four sections, each of which has approximately 25 poems. Bryan's vibrant tempera-paint illustrations open each section. In "The Self and the Inner World," the young poets express their thoughts about growing up, how they feel about their bodies, and what foods they like and dislike, and make observations about people and events that surround them. "Where We Live" looks at the trees, birds, sounds, and other aspects of the community in which the children live. "Anybody's Family" includes poems about ethnicity, members of the students' households, and their feelings toward family members. In "The Wide Imagination," the poets are given free rein: they write about such topics as mirrors, history, time, words, and love, to name just a few. In an informative afterword, Nye explains her method used to find and get reprint permission from the adults who were once children in her poetry classes. Readers will enjoy her humor and enthusiasm, as well as the joy she expresses upon discovering that her efforts 25 years ago had, indeed, been successful.-Linda Zoppa, South Bronx High School, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|