Locomotion

Author	Langston Hughes
ISBN	1416935401

Langston Hughes' powerful and simple poem is brilliantly accompanied by Charles R. Smith's transcendent photographs. Each photograph illustrates the beauty, depth and soul of being an African-American today. From close ups of lined hands to the joy of a baby's giggle, the photographs span ages....

Author	Naomi Shihab Nye
ISBN	0060853905

Honey. Beeswax. Pollinate. Hive. Colony. Work. Dance. Communicate. Industrious. Buzz. Sting. Cooperate.

Where would we be without them? Where would we be without one another?

In eighty-two poems and paragraphs, Naomi Shihab Nye alights on the essentials of our time—our loved...

Author	Nikki Grimes
ISBN	1423102517

Sam can't believe it when his father leaves the family to marry another woman--and a white woman, at that. The betrayal cuts deep--Sam had been so close to his dad, he idolized him. Now who can he turn to, who can he trust? Even God seems to have ditched him.

Ishmael is his father's first son, the...

Author	Karen Hesse
ISBN	1416903275

In June 1942, seven months after attacking Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy invaded Alaska's Aleutian Islands. For nine thousand years the Aleut people had lived and thrived on these treeless, windswept lands. Within days of the first attack, the entire native population living west of Unimak Island...

Author	Ron Koertge
ISBN	0763629391

"This funny and poignant novel celebrates the power of writing to help young people make sense of their lives and unlock and confront their problems." - SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)

When MVP Kevin Boland gets the news that he has mono and won't be seeing a baseball field for a while,...

Author	Marilyn Nelson
ISBN	1886910537

George Washington Carver was born a slave in Missouri about 1864 and was raised by the childless white couple who had owned his mother. In 1877 he left home in search of an education, eventually earning a master's degree. In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start the agricultural department...

Author	Carole Boston Weatherford
ISBN	1590784405

A poetic tribute to the victims of the racially motivated church bombing that served as a seminal event in the struggle for civil rights. In 1963, the eyes of the world were on Birmingham, Alabama, a flashpoint for the civil rights movement. Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the United...

Author	Hope Anita Smith
ISBN	0805072020

So many unanswered questions weigh down thirteen-year-old C.J. as he struggles to understand why his father walked out. His father is back now, though C.J. is not as quick to forgive as the other members of his family. He still feels the weight of responsibility that fell on his shoulders when Daddy was...

Author	Joyce Carol Thomas
ISBN	0060253754

Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous poetry collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of...

Author	Joyce Sidman
ISBN	0618616802

When Mrs. Merz asks her sixth grade class to write poems of apology, they end up liking their poems so much that they decide to put them together into a book. Not only that, but they get the people to whom they apologized to write poems back.

In haiku, pantoums, two-part poems, snippets, and rhymes,...

Author	Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
ISBN	0618618678

JoEllen’s parents divorced when she was very young, so she was used to splitting her time between them, shuttling four blocks from one Cincinnati apartment to another. But when her dad moved to the old family farm last year, her life was suddenly divided. Now on weekdays she’s a city girl, called...

Author	John Grandits
ISBN	0618503617

An eleven-year-old boy named Robert voices typical—and not so typical—middle-grade concerns in this unique, memorable collection of hilarious poems. His musings cover the usual stuff, like pizza, homework, thank-you notes, and his annoying older sister. In addition, he speculates about...

Author	Eloise Greenfield
ISBN	0064430979

An ALA Notable Children's Book, Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems includes sixteen poems that tell of love and the simple joys of everyday life, seen through the eyes of a child: playing with a friend, skipping rope, riding on a train—or keeping Mama company till Daddy gets back.

Each of these...

Author	Margarita Engle
ISBN	0805086749

It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.

Black,...

Author	Paul B. Janeczko
ISBN	0763606626

From the simplest couplet to the mind-boggling pantoum, the award-winning team behind A POKE IN THE I shows us the many fascinating ways poetic forms take shape.


Please
Open this book for something
Extraordinary.
Twenty-nine different poetic forms await you
Inside...

Author	Walter Dean Myers
ISBN	0060731591

Vietnam.

A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy. He crouches and waits -- heart pounding, tense and...

Author	Bob Raczka
ISBN	1626722366

Who says words need to be concrete? This collection shapes poems in surprising and delightful ways.

Concrete poetry is a perennially popular poetic form because they are fun to look at. But by using the arrangement of the words on the page to convey the meaning of the poem, concrete or shape poems...

Author	Helen Frost
ISBN	0374317763

There's
more to me than
most people
see.

Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants,...

Author	Javaka Steptoe
ISBN	1584300167

In this intergenerational collection of poetry by new and established African American writers, fatherhood is celebrated with honor, humor, and grace. Folami Abiade, Dinah Johnson, Carole Boston Weatherford, Dakari Hru, Michael Burgess, E. Ethelbert Miller, Lenard D. Moore, David Anderson,...

Author	Nikki Giovanni
ISBN	1402210485

Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a celebration of poetry with a beat. Poetry can have both a rhyme and a rhythm. Sometimes it is obvious; sometimes it is hidden. But either way, make no mistake, poetry is as vibrant and exciting as it gets. And when you find yourself clapping your hands or tapping your feet,...

Author	Sharon Creech
ISBN	0061430927

Love that book
like a boy loves a cat
I said I love that book
like a boy loves a cat
Love to take a pen in the morning
love to take a pen
Write like that!

Love that book
like a cat loves birds
I said I love that book
like a cat loves birds
Love to feast on its pages
Love...