April is National Poetry Month, and I’m going to make a confession. I’ve never considered myself a poetry person. My high school experiences with poetry were few and far between, and while I wrote some (really bad) poems as a teenager, I always felt I had only a superficial understanding of the art form. College opened up a new appreciation, but I still felt that I was way behind everyone else in my grasp of poetic style. I’ve tried, in my work with kids, to expose myself to different types of poetry about different subjects and encourage them to become familiar with it in a way that I never was as a child. Historically, our poetry volumes don’t circulate very well, which is kind of a shame. It can be a beautiful form of expression and I don’t want my own discomfort with it to keep me from promoting it.
I didn’t get this list finished in time to share it as my book post this month, but I’ve been working on it the past few weeks to share as a blog post on our library website and really wanted to post it here too. I wanted to share some great titles that feature rhymes, poetry, or characters who love poetry and use it to express themselves.
Included after the book list are some easy, at-home poetry exercises to get your kiddos’ creative juices flowing.
Picture Books
Salsa Lullaby by Jen Arena
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes
Rosie Revere, Engineer (and others) by Andrea Beaty
The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson
La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya
The Three Billy Goats Buenos by Susan Middleton Elya
Sometimes Rain by Meg Fleming
The Sun Shines Everywhere by Mary Ann Hoberman
All Ears, All Eyes by Richard Jackson
Watersong by Tim McCanna
Blue Sky, White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus
Nothing Rhymes With Orange by Adam Rex
Poetree by Shauna LaVoy Reynolds
Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle: How Animals Get Ready for Winter by Laura Purdie Salas
How to Be a Lion by Ed Vere
Nanette’s Baguette by Mo Willems
Middle Grade Fiction
Izzy Kline Has Butterflies by Beth Ain
Unbound: A Novel in Verse by Ann E. Burg
Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Forest World by Margarita Engle
Garvey’s Choice by Nikki Grimes
Catching a Storyfish by Janice Harrington
Witness by Karen Hesse
Brains for Lunch by K.A. Holt
House Arrest by K.A. Holt
Knockout by K.A. Holt
Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt
The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan
Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry
Non-Fiction Collections
They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles
When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons by Julie Fogliano
The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems by Paul B. Janeczko
Fur, Feather, Fin – All of Us Are Kin by Diane Lang
The Horse’s Haiku by Michael J. Rosen
Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths by Marilyn Singer
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer
Earth Verse: Haiku from the Ground Up by Sally M. Walker
Easy Extension Activities
Poetry from magazine clippings
Poetry Types and Prompts from Laura Shovan’s The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary
Much Hamsters 