Friday, May 23, 2008

Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems by John Grandits

These 34 creative poems are told by fifteen-year-old Jessie who voices typical teenage concerns such as annoying siblings, bad hair days, problems with parents, AP classes, jocks and cheerleaders. Students will laugh aloud at the poetry, hilarious illustrations, and surprises. For example, there is a clever poem on Grownups Talking (A+) and Grownups Listening (D-) Although the poems deal with high school life, they will appeal to students in Grades 5 - 8. Students would enjoy listening and comparing these poems to those written by Grandits in Technically, It's Not My Fault (poems by Robert, Jessie's younger brother). I can see this title being used for poetry, writing, and art activities .

2 comments:

bullarc said...

I will second this one. These clever concrete poems could act as a springboard for budding poetry writers. In March I made a comment in my notees that students might need to be middle-school age in order to get a all of the poems. Now that its May, I am inlcined to agree with Karen's suggested age range and think that this collection (including the title) might catch the eyes of our rapidly changing fith graders!

KP said...

FYI: My students drew nipples on the boobs in one of the poems, first thing, so a teacher brought it to my attention. I currently have it back on the shelf but, now having read it, I observe that some of the topics are a bit upper level -- as in 8th.