BookSpeak!

Salas, Laura Purdie. 2011. BookSpeak! Poems About Books.  Ill. by Josee Bisaillon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub Co.  ISBN 9780574223001

(Image obtained from amazon.com)

Summary

BookSpeak! is an anthology picture books showcasing different elements of books, genres, characters, and more found through an adventure in reading.  The intended audience for this anthology pre-school to third grade.

Quality and Appeal

Poetry pictures books about sharing the joy of reading are certainly in my wheelhouse.  My personal favorite (before reading this book) was I Am the Book by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  After reading BookSpeak! Poems About Books, Hopkins surely has a competitor! 

BookSpeak! Poems About Books serves as an excellent introduction to teaching poetic and literary meaning as the poems contain a plethora of literary concepts, form, and styles.  There are 21 poems within this picture book and each poem is cleverly titled and even more cleverly written.   Some of the vocabulary may be a bit advanced for the younger readers.  Picking through the poetry found in BookSpeak! Poems About Books to tailor to the audience is recommended. 

Now, it must be mentioned that the mixed media illustrations by Bisaillon are incredible.  While any other illustrator would likely be able to craft artwork to further (or sustain) the overall theme of BookSpeak! Poems About Books, Bisaillon manages to strengthen the theme and propel the poetry forward.  He accomplishes this by combining his collage work with some indication of literature, such as ink blot birds, animals crafted from torn book pages (with an evidently aged typeset), patterned bookshelves, handwriting, and more. 

Spotlight Poem

Skywriting

Line after line of inky black birds

forming the flocks that shift into words.

Page after page of tales winging by,

singing a story against a

white sky.

This poem and any of the poetry in BookSpeak! Poems About Books can be used to introduce a learning block on the elements of a story.

Books like BookSpeak! Poems About Books

I Am the Book by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Little Red Writing by Joan Holub