Janeczko Collection: Hey You!

Janeczko, Paul B., comp. 2007. Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things. Illustrated by Robert Rayevsky. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780060523480.

Image courtesy
Paul B. Janeczko

Review and Critical Analysis
In Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things, Paul B. Janeczko has collected 30 poems by 25 different poets--from classic poets like Emily Dickinson to more modern poets like Douglas Florian and Nikki Grimes. The contents of the poems vary from black holes, to skyscrapers, to bees, and everything in between. Like the topics, the forms are varied, too. The book contains free verse poems, letter poems, and rhyming poems. The one unifying factor that unifies these poems is the fact that they are apostrophe poems, each one written to a specific object.

While the level of the language differs from poem to poem, the nature of apostrophe poems elicits elements of personification in almost every poem. For example, in “Sneakers” by Joan Bransfield Graham, the speaker comments on her shoes that appear “ready to blaze into/the day, either with or without/my feet!” and in X.J. Kennedy’s “To a Snowflake,” the speaker attributes the power of thought to snowflakes as the speaker considers how the snowflake cannot “Make up your wisher where/You wish to spend tonight.” The poets in Hey You! bring all of these ordinary objects to life through personification. Many of the poems build on this personification with imagery and figurative language. Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Little Blanco River” is one of the most vivid examples. Nye’s speaker describes the river, whose “...smooth shale skull/is slick & cool.” She depicts the river as making “...a clean swishing sound/centuries of skirts/lifting & falling in delicate rounds.” Though the language varies among these poems, each one reflects a close, intimate examination of an object that has made itself important to the speaker.

In Janeczko’s selections for Hey You!, the poems use sound in several different ways. Marjorie Maddox’s “Warning to a Fork” includes line after line of alliteration to build a strong rhythm and sense of foreboding. The poem warns the “Pitchfork for pie,/trident for tuna salad” to beware the “mangler of metal utensils,/mortuary of soup spoons and knives.” This alliteration works in conjunction with the onomatopoeic description of the “clank and crunch” of the garbage disposal to create such a dire warning. Unlike the dark nature of “Warning to a Fork,” Russell Hoban’s “Soft-Boiled” uses strong rhythm and end rhyme to create a light-hearted tone reminiscent of Dr. Seuss. His opening lines, “I do not like the way you slide,/I do not like your soft inside,” will conjure Green Eggs and Ham for almost any one.

The poems are accompanied by the cartoon-style illustrations of Robert Rayevsky in the foreground of each spread. The backgrounds of the visuals vary from what appears to be blurred photographs to watercolor paintings to abstract designs. Even the illustrations for the poems take on a variety of tones and textures. Despite their wide range, the images are connected by some type of blur or hazy effect added to each one that gives the pages a dream-like feeling.

Hey You! is a varied collection of poems from well-known poets of quality. While the poems have no clear theme, they provide excellent examples of the many ways poets can use apostrophe.

Example Poem
Sneakers
By Joan Bransfield Graham

Sneakers,
glancing from bed,
I see morning light cast
long shadows behind you just like
comets.

Your tails
flaring, you seem
ready to blaze into
the day, either with or without my feet!

Activity
Have students look at several different types of shoes. You can invite students to sit in a circle and display their shoes to each other, or, if you feel using student shoes might cause a student embarrassment, you could use images of shoes or a selection of your own shoes. Ask students questions that lead them to think of the shoes personified. For example, you could ask students to explain which shoes they think have the most energy? Which ones are tired? Which shoes look like they have been on many adventures? Do any of the shoes seem angry? Excited? Shy? After students have had a chance to respond to the shoes, explain that you are going to read a poem from the point of view of a child speaking to their sneakers.

After reading “Sneakers” at least once or twice, invite students to share what they noticed about the poem. Students should notice that the speaker is talking to shoes that do not have the ability to respond. Ask them to imagine what would happen if the shoes came to life. What might the shoes say in response to the child?

As an extension, students may choose to write a 1-2 stanza poem from the point of view of the shoes that gives its response to the child. Other students may wish to write their own poem that speaks to a specific object like their desk, the school bus, or their favorite game.

Science Poetry: Beast Feast

Florian, Douglas. 1994. Beast Feast. San Diego: Harcourt. ISBN: 0152951784.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

Review and Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian's Beast Feast contains 21 poems depicting all types of animals. Some animals such as the ants and the caterpillar are very familiar, while others, like the rhea and the kiwi, are more unusual. Each of the book's spreads pairs one of the poems with a whimsical, full-page watercolor painting of the animal.

The poems in Beast Feast rely heavily on playful rhyme and strong rhythm for their appeal. Florian uses traditional rhyme throughout the book. For example, in  "The Sloth" he rhymes "claws" and "pause," but he also plays with pronunciation and invents words to add a comical effect. In "The Walrus" he rhymes the word "sea" with his invented "walrusty," and in "The Boa" he plays with the word more, writing it as "moa and moa."

While all the poems play with rhyme and rhythm, they structures vary significantly. They vary in length from the two-lined "The Boa" that is a fairly simple rhyming couplet to the 20-lined "The Pigeon." Several of the poems are structured as quatrains, while my personal favorite, "The Mole" is written as a two-stanza limerick. The variety of poems and structures and lengths ensure there's a poem for everyone in this book.

Florian's language in Beast Feast is very accessible for children. The wording and descriptions are mostly straightforward, with an occasional simile such as referring to a lobster as being "Like an underwater/Mobster." He does include some scientific vocabulary such as "crustacean," "invertebrates," and "reptilian" that might need explanation for younger students who have not learned the vocabulary, yet. Their inclusion, however, is not so intrusive that students who might select this book from the shelf will be completely confused.

Douglas Florian's Beast Feast won the 1995 Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award and is an excellent science resource for the library or elementary classroom.

Example Poem

The Lobster

See the hard-shelled
Leggy lobster
Like an underwater
Mobster
With two claws
To catch and crush
Worms and mollusks
Into mush
And antennae
Long and thick
Used for striking
Like a stick.
So be careful
On vacation
Not to step on
This crustacean.

Activity
"The Lobster" is an especially useful poem to use with a unit on ocean life. To introduce the poem, I would engage children in a conversation about their favorite underwater animal. Ask them to share what makes that animal special before reading about the legs, pinchers, and antennae of the lobster.

As an extension, have the children write a poem about their favorite ocean animal. Encourage them to try using rhyme or a simile like the poet does in "The Lobster." The poems can also be illustrated with traditional art supplies, or the poem and illustration can be designed using an iPad or computer.

Florian Poetry: Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars

Florian, Douglas. 2007. Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. Orlando: Harcourt. ISBN: 9780152053727.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

Review and Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian's Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars is a beautiful informational book of 20 poems about all things space-related.  The text has many of the expected features of an informational book, such as a table of contents, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for further reading, but this book is so much more than just an informational book.

This book is first and foremost a poetry book. Florian's poems all have a strong rhyme and rhythm to them. For example, the first poem, "Skywatch" begins "On a clear night you might try/To gaze upon the starry sky." While both the rhyme and rhythm are strong throughout the book, Florian varies the rhyme scheme and rhythm to keep the poems from becoming to sing-song and predictable. Additionally, the poems include strong imagery and figurative language, like a description of the sun's "Scalding-hot surface" or the comparison of a comet to "A dirty snowball of space debris."

The artwork that accompanies each poem--also by Florian--adds another layer of richness to the writing. The illustrations of goache, collage, and rubber stamps on primed brown paper bags create vibrant scenes for readers to explore. Not only does the artwork depict the space element serving as the subject of the poem, the rubber stamp lettering labels other features like moons, geographical features and other key components. My favorite spread is for the poem titled "A Galaxy." The background is a deep navy blue, nearly black, that looks like the abyss of outer space. The poem itself takes the shape of a spiral galaxy, and other galaxy shapes, like barred, elliptical, and egg-shaped galaxies, are depicted in beige with bright orange outlines. The visual effect is stunning, and the additional shapes provide the opportunity for readers to explore the concept further. The illustrations--combined with loads of space facts and fun poems-- make this a book of poetry that readers will want to sit down with and explore. Older children may even want to look up some of the names incorporated into the design to figure out why the names are included.

Young readers will love the strong rhyme and rhythm of Florian's poems in Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. These traits make it a perfect book for reading aloud or call and response readings. Plus, the witty, whimsical nature of some of the poems will draw children in as well. For example, in "Pluto," the poet explains the dwarf planet's demotion, saying "Pluto was a planet./Till one day it got fired."  Florian's comparison of a black hole to a "Cosmic broom" and then wishing he had one for his room will delight younger readers as well. This book is an excellent support for the science classroom.

Example Poem
Venus

Scalding-hot surface
Nine hundred degrees,
No creatures,
No trees.
Poisonous clouds
Of acid above.
Why was it named for
the goddess of love?

Activity
Every poem in this book could be used in an astronomy unit in the science classroom. I can see the poems serving both as introductions to plants, constellations, and black holes or as reviews to see what students remember about previous lessons. The possibilities are endless!

One way I would consider using the planet poems like "Venus" is to use them as part of a check for understanding before assessing knowledge of a particular planet. I would introduce the poem by asking children, "What do you know about the planet Venus?" After giving the group a chance to share everything they can remember, I would read the poem to them at least two times--one time to give them the opportunity to simply enjoy the poem and another to have them listen for facts. After discussing what the poet chose to include and leave out, students could then use both Florian's illustration and other pictures (both realistic and artistic) of the planet as inspiration to create their own illustration of the planet Venus. The illustrations could then be incorporated to a trading card design for display.