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What is Children’s Poetry For?

The title of the 2009 Phillipa Pearce Memorial Lecture, given by Michael Rosen and introduced by Morag Styles. The lecture was presented to a packed audience at Homerton College in Cambridge on 10th September.

As always Michael Rosen is great to listen to, a captivating speaker and lots of information. These notes highlight some of the evening.

Poetry can be seen as a speaking picture. It helps meaning to become clear without us knowing how. It provides insight into emotions. It is memorable and enters our value judgement. It encapsulates wisdom with action. It brings together ideas and feelings.

Poetry exists more like the mortar than the bricks. It is the glue in between.

Michael presented much of the talk based on work by Sir Phillip Sidney, 1595 ‘An Apologie for Poetry’,or rather defence of poetry. Even then he was defending the way poetry was associated with playing and jesting.

But for children and poetry, it is no wonder they go together so well. Rhyme, verse, patterns, what better way to learn from the start about words and meaning. It’s about playing with words, hearing words when you don’t know the meaning, putting them in context.

And making sense of what you hear- children do it all the time!

Keep visiting Dolphin Booksellers, we are going to be adding more information this autumn.

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Heroes and Heroines

old p Heroes and Heroines is the theme of the Old Possum’s Children’s Poetry Competition for for 2009. Time to get your imaginations fired up again after the summer break and get writing.

The Children’s Bookshelf is organising the competition, they’re part of the Poetry Book Society. Even if you don’t want to get involved in the competition, its worth having a look at their website, it has all the details and much more beside.

The competition, now in its fourth year, is open to individuals and schools, and divided into 2 age groups,7- 8 yr olds and 9 – 11 yr olds. There are cash prizes as well as books and CPB memberships. A teacher’s guide will be available from early September.

Entries will be accepted from 10 September until 19th October, so its just right for that first few days back in the classroom! On Thursday 8th October we have National Poetry day, the work cover 2 activities in 1!

Carol Ann Duffy, the new poet laureate will chair the panel, to include, John Agard, Antonia Byatt, Gillian Clarke, Janetta Otter Barry and Roger Stevens. They all have a fantastic achievements within their work and connections to children’s poetry.

Support for the project also comes from Old Possum’s Practical Trust. TS Elliot would undoubtedly enjoy the title of the competition, Heroes and Heroines. I’m just wondering which heroine I would choose?

Visit Dolphin Booksellers home page for information and books.

The Book Store

beach hut August and at last a space in the diary for clearing the store of books. Well that is in the plan.

There are approximately 8,000+ books. What is it about books from the past, those children’s novels that just have to be re-read? From The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner and The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo to 100+ways to make paper aeroplanes.

books Way back in the winter we completely changed a school library into a community library. It’s a fantastic space, with comfy chairs, computers, smart shelving units and books, of course.

Some of the sorted books will be going back into school, but the majority will be taken to places, mainly overseas, where books are in short supply. We are lucky that people we work with have many contacts with groups and can get the books direct to the children who need them.

So, I’ll just read one or two more, then get back to packing into boxes.

Dolphin BookBox will give you information about our Community Library service, plus other things that we can supply too!

Visit the home page of Dolphin Booksellers for latest information.

Antarctic Dreams

Ant Have you ever wished you could sail away on a boat to the land of ice and snow?

Antarctic Dreams is just where Jackie Morris, the illustrator, is hoping to go. But she needs our votes for her to get on a voyage to Antarctica in February 2010.

Vote for her at Quark Expeditions, we have at Dolphin Booksellers. It’s a great thing to do for Jackie. She is so talented and the pictures and images will be just amazing.

On her blog Starlight Starbright, the title of a new book to be published by Barefoot Books in autumn 2009, you can see her wish. But here is a small extract.

‘So now I wish…..and look up at a sky where the dark is pinned in place and held up by different patterns of starlight.’

Wishes and hopes and dreams – they can come true.

For lots about children’s books visit the home page of Dolphin Booksellers.

Poetry Award 2009 CLPE- winner

John Agard, with The Young Inferno, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura is the winner of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education poetry award for 2009.

CLPE has a brilliant poster information sheet,which you can find on CLPE and Dolphin Booksellers.

The Young Inferno is an amazing retelling of this classic by Dante. Full of action and loads of mental images, pacy and more than just engaging. The Furies are there and you will come face to face with them!

Satoshi Kitamura has captured all the action and more besides in his compelling and powerful illustrations. The teenage hoodie, as narrator of the tales into the nine circles of hell must be a hit with its audience of young people. Where else would you find Frankenstein as a bouncer…….

Frances Lincoln, the publishers, have shown yet again their skill at commissioning two of the best, in writing and illustrating, and bringing them together in a daring retelling of this story.

Visit the home page of Dolphin Booksellers. Bringing information about children’s books direct to you. Working with authors and illustrators in communities delivering book events with a difference.

Amazon link to The Young Inferno

Amazon link to the books of John Agard

Amazon link to the books of Satoshi Kitamura

Wendy Cooling MBE June 2009

Wendy Cooling ,the founder of Bookstart received an MBE for her services to children’s books on June 2nd 2009. A wonderful recognition of her inspirational and long lasting work in the world of children’s books.

National Children’s Book Week and the Children’s Book Foundation were also started by Wendy, as she could see that getting children and books together was a real need and had so much to offer.

Reading for pleasure, for children and parents is great for all sorts of reasons. Wendy has always promoted a love of reading and has done so much to make sure that books are available for all parents and children.

In 2006, Wendy won the Eleanor Farjeon Award for her outstanding services to the world of children’s books.

And the good work continues in book reviews and in working with children on numerous reading related projects, Wendy makes sure that children’s books have the place they deserve.

You can visit the home page of Dolphin Booksellers. Bringing information about the best in children’s books direct to you. Working with authors and illustrators in school book events and supporting literacy projects in a community nearby.

Children’s Laureate 2009- 2011

Anthony Browne, illustrator is the new Children’s Laureate for 2009- 2011.

Famous for many of his books, he is a brilliant choice and at Dolphin Books we send our congratulations.

It was fantastic to be present at the announcement and to feel part of the real uniqueness that the Children’s Laureateship brings to the future of children’s books for all our children.

Great to hear Anthony so enthusiastic about Picture Books, ” They’re special, perfect for sharing,. There’s a gap between pictures and words and they encourage a way of looking. They are for everyone, not just for younger children.”

His own picture books are certainly that, try Willy the Wimp or Gorilla. (…links to books below).

More details on the event and the speeches that were made will be added to the Dolphin site soon.

Amazon link for Anthony Browne

Amazon link for Willy the Wimp

Amazon link for Gorilla

If……. Little Word, Big Meaning

If you can keep your head when all about you

are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

but make allowances for their doubting too…..

The start of one of my favourite poems, by Rudyard Kipling. And I can even forgive him for referring to men only! Well, just about…

Have found a brilliant poetry website for children, called Man in the Moon. It has loads of good stuff, games, exciting websites, interviews and silly jokes. Look out for the cat, pacing up and down like Einstein waiting for an idea or inspiration.

And if you click through, you will find an excellent description of, and ways to use, similes and metaphors.

The rhyming pattern and way poems are written, help to make them easily remembered. From the start of language development, children recite the pattern, later they remember nursery rhymes and games.

In Shakespeare, we find the use of the iambic pentameter, the most common metrical form in English poetry, as in the first line of Richard the Third,’ Now is the winter of our discontent’. All to do with the number of syllables, stressed and unstressed. Rhythm being measured in small groups of syllables, called feet. ‘Iambic’ describes the type of foot and ‘pentameter’ means a line has five feet.

Maybe there is a poem that you keep in your head, like a story you keep in a book.

You can visit the home page of Dolphin Booksellers. Bringing information about the best in children’s books direct to you. Working with authors and illustrators in schools and book events,

WikiReadia

wiki WikiReadia is a searchable, editable good practice guide to reading. It’s a great resource and has loads of information about projects that are happening around the country to promote reading. Its part of the Reading for Life programme. Its beauty is in its collaborative nature and its purpose is to provide a place where good practice in reading is recognised and shared, in effect, an online encyclopedia.

Anyone who is interested in reading can take part. The programme which runs the wiki, called a MediaWiki is carefully designed so that any mistakes can be easily be altered.

garde There’s a great section on Reading Gardens, which are great for your health and well being. What joy to sit in the outside and just read!

‘If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.’ Marcus Tullius Cicero.

You can visit our home page of Dolphin Booksellers. Bringing information about the best in children’s books direct to you. Working with authors and illustrators in schools and book events.

3 Illustrators and a woolly armadillo….

3 Illustrators in conversation and a woolly armadillo, that took central stage!

Jackie Morris, Petr Horacek and Jan Fearnley were talking about their illustrations at the Federation of Children’s Book Groups conference.

Then out of Jan’s bag appeared not a canvas with the latest drawing but a woolly armadillo called Milo. Brightly coloured in a stripy outfit he was the answer to Jan’s problems . Find out more about Jan’s books, a very successful author and illustrator.

Petr’s, Suzy Goose, just wants to be different to all the other ducks. On her adventures she finds herself in front of a very scary lion.

There’s a fantastic video on Petr’s website that’s well worth a look. Plus his other books, like Elephant,who went inside. Petr started out in Prague,working in communist Czechoslovakia and also studying at the Academy of Fine Art, that was until the revolution and student strike!

Jackie Morris, with her amazingly beautiful illustrations and huge range of books, both illustrated and written. The Snow Leopard, published by Frances Lincoln and The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, published by Barefoot Books are two of our favourites. Her web site is full of interest,things to buy and blogs to read!

I love the shots of her studio and the walks by the sea. It makes me feel better about having lots of stuff around me, helps with the creativity, or at least that’s my excuse.

Milo Armadillo – Amazon Link

Silly Suzy Goose – Amazon link

Elephant – Amazon link

The Snow Leopard – Amazon link

Barefoot Book of Classic Poems – Amazon link

You can visit our home page of Dolphin Booksellers. Bringing information about the best in children’s books direct to you. Working with authors and illustrators in schools and book events.