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Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets



Last updated Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Author: Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley
Illustrator: Ekua Holmes
Date of Publication: 2017
ISBN: 076368094X
Grade Level: 3rd    (GLCs: Click here for grade level guidelines.)
Date(s) Used: Mar. 2022

Synopsis: Out of gratitude for the poet’s art form, Newbery Award–winning author and poet Kwame Alexander, along with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, present original poems that pay homage to twenty famed poets who have made the authors’ hearts sing and their minds wonder. Stunning mixed-media images by Ekua Holmes, winner of a Caldecott Honor and a John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, complete the celebration and invite the reader to listen, wonder, and perhaps even pick up a pen.

Note to readers:
•  Volunteer readers might want to choose the poems they will read beforehand. Try to pick a few from Parts I, II, and III.

Discussion topics for before reading:
•  Have you ever written a poem?
•  How can a poem celebrate a poet?

Vocabulary:

•  poem - a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure.
•  poet - a person who writes poems.
•  ellipses - a regular oval shape, traced by a point moving in a plane so that the sum of its distances from two other points (the foci) is constant, or resulting when a cone is cut by an oblique plane which does not intersect the base.
•  couplet - two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.
•  quatrain - a stanza of four lines, especially one having alternate rhymes.
•  haiku - a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world. A poem in English written in the form of a haiku.

Discussion topics for during/after reading:
•  Which type of poem is your favorite? (see "About the Poets Being Celebrated" at the end of the book)

Craft ideas:
•  Check our craft ideas on Pinterest!
https://www.pinterest.com/readingtokids/march-2022-music-entertainment//
•  Check this website for more suggestions: http://readingtokids.org/ReadingClubs/CraftTips.php
•  Draw a picture for background and write a poem.

Special activities:
•  We have a special video to share at our March 12, 2022 reading clubs! Volunteers for those clubs will receive the link to that YouTube video in their "Final Reminder..." email on Friday, March 11, 2022, along with directions on how to share a YouTube video on Zoom.

*Note: These craft ideas are just suggestions. You can use them, but you don't have to use them. You can expand upon them, or add your own twist. Remember, though, that the focus of your time should not be on the development and execution of a craft; the focus should be on the read-aloud and the enjoyment of the book!