Poetry

May 10 – Mother Ocean Day

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celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-at-the-sea-floor-cafe

About the Holiday

The brain child of the South Florida Kayak Fishing Club and enacted in 2013, Mother Ocean Day promotes awareness of the beauty and wonder of the world’s oceans. Teeming with rare and surprising creatures and plants, the ocean remains one of Earth’s most amazing mysteries. Today, take time to enjoy all the ocean has to offer—go to the beach and walk, snorkel, swim, or fish—or if you’re more of a landlubber read a book about our Mother Ocean.

At the Sea Floor Café: Odd Ocean Critter Poems

Written by Leslie Bulion | Illustrated by Leslie Evans

 

With a jaunty exhortation to “Dive In!” Leslie Bulion invites readers to “…visit a habitat shallow and deep. / and boiling hot, where acids seep, / and frigid and pressured and mountainy-steep, / Come explore the sea! Seventeen species of “odd critters, enormous and tiny…hunters and foragers, hiders and peekers” are described in clever, informative verse.

The Coconut Octopus is a wily creature: “This octopus walks backwards on two arms, / And wraps the other six around its top. / It ambles free of predatory harms, / And thus avoids becoming shark-chewed slop.” The symbiotic relationship between the Leopard Sea Cucumber and the Emperor Shrimp is told in alternating lines of blue and red.

“I inch along.”

“We hitch a ride. / We tour the seafloor country side.”

“I’m ship,”

“We’re crew. / We swab the decks / By eating scummy algae specks.”

I’m camouflaged / in leopard spots.

While not the swiftest / Of the yachts, / A top-notch spot to meet a mate.”

When threatened I eviscerate.

To spew my guts / Is quite a chore, / And it takes weeks / To grow some more. / But I keep predators away.

We live to crew / Another day.

The unexplained habit of the convict fish, which “eats” its young every night just to spit them out again, is described in “Fish Food,” and readers can dig their teeth into another meal-related relationship between the reef shark and the cleaner wrasse in “Healthy Eating.” In “Dental Health” readers learn that narwhal’s tusks are much more than defense mechanisms. Instead, each tooth “contains ten million nerves to sense / environmental evidence.” And what’s more—“…when we see them crossing spars / and jousting underneath the stars, / one’s tusk above and one’s beneath, / it’s not a fight; their brushing teeth.”

“Crabby Camouflage” has never been so elaborate or decorative as that concocted by the jeweled anemone crab, and “Dolphin Fashion” reveals an ingenious way to protect a tender snout: “A bottlenose counseled her daughter: / Put this sponge on your beak underwater. / You can scare out more fish, / Poke sharp stones as you wish, / And your skin’ll stay smooth like it oughter.”

Snapping shrimp, epaulette sharks, the violet snail, sea spiders, krill, the broody squid, sipohonophores, erenna, larvaceans, osedax, and the remotely operated vehicles that give us a view of the ocean floor are also celebrated in this fun poetry collection.

Each poem is followed by scientific information about the subject of the verse.

Leslie Bulion piques readers’ interest in these fascinating ocean creatures with her smart, witty rhymes that reveal little-known facts.

Leslie Evans, with her printmaker’s eye, illustrates the deep blue pages with stylized depictions of the fish and animals that populate the sea, allowing readers to visualize the quirks and adaptations written about.

Ages 6 and up

Peachtree Publishers, 2011 | ISBN 978-1561455652

Gardening for Wildlife Month Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-flower-vase

Spoon Flowers

The rounded scoop and long “stem” of plastic ice-cream spoons make a perfect base for pretty wildflowers. You can use the printable petal template or make petals of your own design to fill your vase with color

Supplies

  • Printable Petal Template
  • 3 – 4 plastic ice-cream spoons, these are available in different colors at party supply stores or you can paint them the color you’d like
  • Multi-purpose paint in colors of your choice, if you are painting the spoons
  • Heavy craft paper in your favorite flower colors
  • Green ribbon
  • Ribbon, hairbands, weaving loom bands, or colored wire
  • Glue gun or strong glue
  • Paintbrush 
  • Scissors
  • Beans, sand, pebbles, or glass or plastic beads to fill the vase

Directions

  1. Print or trace the petals onto colored paper. The number of petals you need for each flower will depend on the size of the spoon
  2. Cut out the petals
  3. With the glue gun or strong glue, attach the petals to the spoon, gluing the end of the petals around the inside edge of the spoon, Let dry
  4. Wrap the handle of the spoon with the green ribbon and glue in place
  5. Fill the vase ¾ full with beans, sand, pebbles, or beads
  6. Decorate the rim of the bottle with the ribbon, bands, or wire
  7. Push the flower stems into the vase and arrange

April 21 – Poem in Your Pocket Day

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Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems by Bob Raczka picture book review

About the Holiday

Poem in Your Pocket Day has become one of the favorite events of National Poetry Month. Requiring nothing but a pocket and a treasured poem, the day is a perfect way for poets, non-poets, and poetry lovers of all types to interact with this beloved art form. Originally enacted in 2002 by the Office of the Mayor in conjunction with the New York City Departments of Cultural Affairs and Education, the holiday was embraced as a national observance by the Academy of American Poets in 2008.

Here are some suggestions from the Academy of American Poets on how to spend the day. So clean the lint, coupons, old receipts, tissues, and loose change out of your pockets and replace them with a poem! Those crumpled bits may even inspire your own poem—try it!

  • Post pocket-sized verses in public places
  • Create and distribute bookmarks with your favorite lines of poetry
  • Start a “poems for pockets” giveaway at school or work
  • Add a poem to your email footer
  • Post lines from your favorite poem on your Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat
  • Send a poem to a friend

Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems

By Bob Raczka

 

When you envision a poem in your head, what do you see? A block of lines? A square or a rectangle? Well, sweep that image from your mind because in Bob Raczka’s Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems, verses become actions, objects, puzzles, and natural phenomena. Not only are the poems shaped to illustrate their theme, the titles use clever imagery as well.

As you encounter the poem hanger you’ll see that “han” has broken away and is dangling from the hook of g in “ger.” The words of the poem itself are shaped like a hanger and contain a giggle-invoking twist: “I hang out in blue jeans and comfy old shirts. I hang out in blouses and long frilly skirts. I hang out in sport coats and sweaters and shawls. I even hang out with no clothes on at all!”

You might want to get your baseball mitt out before you read homer, in which the first line zooms straight as a pitch and the second—written backwards and at an upward angle—soars like a homerun hit: “The pitcher hurls his hummer toward the slugger squeezing lumber CRA / CK! The slugger slams the hummer toward the bleachers for a homer.”

But don’t put that mitt away just yet! You may need to catch the o, which has escaped from the title p p-up. And if you’ve ever played t-ball, baseball, softball, or even wiffleball, you’ll cringe in recognition of this short but pointed poem.

The sky darkened by night in Dipper and by clouds in Lightning holds two poems expressing very different thoughts. In the title Dipper, the second p has floated to the top of the page where it hangs like a miniature reflection of the dipper-shaped poem, which reads: “Way down there on earth you hold firefly jars, filled up to their lids with light. Up here in the sky, I’m a vessel of stars, my brim overflowing with night.” In the title LIGHTNING, the L strikes the I to create the familiar jagged crack echoed in the shape of the verse: “from a bad mood sky, / tears, / then a jag- / ged slash- / ing flash of anger, / ear- / splitting, / obnoxious, / a cloud tantrum”

Any writer will love poeTRY which is such a clever take on the word as well as the revision and editing process:

“poetry is about taking away the words you don’t need

poetry is taking away words you don’t need

poetry is words you need

poetry is words

try”

Put simply, Bob Raczka’s concrete poems will make you smile. Even more than that, you’ll find yourself wanting to carry this book around, saying “Look at this!” to everyone you meet. Raczka calls these poems “word paintings”—because a poet “uses words like colors to paint pictures inside your head.” If creativity is the talent to present the world in new and surprising ways, making connections that enhance life, then Wet Cement is artistry at its best!

Ages 5 – 9 and up (adults will enjoy these poems as much as kids)

Roaring Brook Press, 2016 | ISBN 978-1626722361

Poem in Your Pocket Day Activity

CPB - Pocket Poem Craft

Pocket Poem Carrier

 

Sometimes you just need a little more inspiration in your day. Here’s a cute way to carry your favorite poem—today and every day!

Supplies

  • An old pair of pants or shorts with back pockets
  • A decorative shoelace
  • Thread or fabric glue
  • Needle
  • Paper
  • Your favorite poem or a poem you write yourself
  • Pen

Directions

  1. Cut one back pocket off an old pair of pants or shorts
  2. Use the shoelace at its full length or cut to desired length
  3. Inside each edge of the pocket sew or glue the ends of the shoelace to make a strap
  4. Print your favorite poem on the paper
  5. Insert the poem into the pocket poem carrier
  6. Take your poem with you and share it with your friends!

April 17 – International Haiku Poetry Day

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The Maine Coon's Haiku and Other Poems for Cat Lovers by Michael J. Rosen and Lee White picture book review

About the Holiday

Part of National Poetry Month, International Haiku Writing Day celebrates the wonders of this most minimalistic yet impactful type of poetry. The familiar 5-7-5 syllable rule doesn’t begin to describe the intricacies of form and thought that goes into these beautiful creations. If you have the opportunity today, read or write some haiku, or attend a recitation of this lovely form of expression.

The Maine Coon’s Haiku and Other Poems for Cat Lovers

Written by Michael J. Rosen | Illustrated by Lee White

 

Fortunately for poetry—and cat—lovers there are as many types of felines as there are ways to describe them. With wit and keen insight, this collection of haiku depicts the mystery, stealth, crouching, and curiosity of twenty breeds of cats.

The remains of a shredded plant elicits an unanswerable question in Ragdoll: “why today the cat / who sleeps beneath the ivy / halved the blameless hearts”.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-maine-coon's-haiku-american-shorthair

Image copyright Lee White, text copyright Michael J. Rosen. Courtesy of Candlewick Press

Any cat owner who finds vases or lamps overturned will appreciate Siamese: “a toppled lamp shade / moon moth must be here somewhere / batted from the dark” It is commonly known that cats own their domain, a fact acknowledged in British Shorthair: “paws plant mud-daisies / along the polished hillside / parked on the cat’s street.”

In these lines felines become baseball players, gymnasts, ghosts, and mist, as in Bombay: “paired shadows prowling / in nightfall, but just two lights / pierce that darkness” and Norwegian Forest Cat: “caught among branches / fog descends the trunk headfirst / one foot at a time.”

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-maine-coon's-haiku-norwegian-forest-coon

Image copyright Lee White, text copyright Michael J. Rosen. Courtesy of Candlewick Press

While the haiku form is necessarily rigid, the supple rhythms of Michael Rosen’s phrases perfectly capture the vast array of quirks, moves, attitudes, and friskiness that make cats such favorite pets. These poems are in turn sweet, spirited, and humorous—just like their subjects.

Lee White similarly highlights the bounding, creeping, prowling, and snoozing postures of all manner and colors of the breeds represented here. The Turkish Angora is painted as transparent as it leaps through the door, becoming more opaque as it reaches mid-page and disappearing from the edge of the book, leaving only its back end behind. The Abyssinian plunks its head and whole body across the open book on its owner’s lap, its eyes closed in dreamy sleep, and the Scottish Fold indomitably maintains its perch in the magnolia tree, determined not to fall like the raining petals.

Ages 5 and up (any cat lover will enjoy these poems)

Candlewick Press, 2015 | ISBN  978-0763664923

Get to know Michael J. Rosen and discover books for kids and adults, poems, videos, work for radio and TV, and more on his website!

View a beautiful gallery of artwork for books and personal illustration by Lee White on his website!

International Haiku Poetry Day Activity

CPB - Cat Bookmark (2)

Hang in there, Kitty! Bookmark

 

Love cats? Love reading? Then here is the purrfect bookmark for you!

Supplies

Directions

  1. Print the Hang in there, Kitty! bookmark
  2. Color the bookmark
  3. Cut around the toes of the paws, leaving the top of the paws attached to make flaps that will hang over the book’s page you want to mark

Picture Book Review

April 15 – Take a Wild Guess Day

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Guess Who, Haiku by Deanna Caswell and Bob Shea picture book review

About the Holiday

Do you have a knack for guessing right answers? Then today is your day! Conjured up by Jim Barber to celebrate hunches, surmises, estimates, and other forms of speculation, today is the perfect time to put your powers of deduction to work. Enjoy the day with games of chance, shell games, card tricks, guessing competitions, or friendly wagers. Just don’t guess on your taxes!

Guess Who, Haiku

Written by Deanna Caswell | Illustrated by Bob Shea

 

Down on the farm the animals are playing games and they invite readers to join in the fun! Combining poetry with a guessing game, this cute book introduces younger children to haiku. On each page an animal presents a riddle about another animal in the form of a haiku. When readers turn the page, they discover the answer to the riddle as well as another one to solve.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-guess-who-haiku-cow-haiku

Image copyright Bob Shea, text copyright Deanna Caswell. Courtesy of Harry N. Abrams Books

As morning dawns the first haiku reveals: “new day on the farm / muffled mooing announces / a fresh pail of milk”. Then kids are asked, “Can you guess who from this haiku?” Flipping the page, kids see a smiling cow who in turn has a haiku for them: “flower visitors / busy buzzing in the field / black and yellow stripes”.

Other animals familiar to kids—a horse, bird, fish, mouse, cat, dog, and this guy: “from a lily pad / keen eyes spy a careless fly / a sticky tongue—SNAP!”— also puzzle over each other from page to page. The final haiku describes an animal like no other: “two hands hold a book / guessing animals’ puzzles / written in haiku”. Who can it be? Kids will giggle and beam when they discover that they too are in the book!

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-guess-who-haiku-cow-haiku

Image copyright Bob Shea, text copyright Deanna Caswell. Courtesy of Harry N. Abrams Books

Deanna Caswell’s Guess Who, Haiku is a fun way to get kids interacting with poetry and the very accessible haiku form. Her clever riddles contain lovely images and lyrical alliteration that make these poems as enjoyable to read as they are to hear.

Bob Shea’s animals are adorably illustrated on vibrant solid-colored backgrounds, and each haiku is accompanied by an image that helps kids guess the answer to the riddle. The text and illustrations work together to make Guess Who, Haiku a wonderful way to spend time with kids—who, after reading, may want to make up some poems of their own!

Ages 3 – 6

 Harry N. Abrams, 2016 | ISBN 978-1419718892

Check out a gallery of work by Bob Shea on his website!

Take a Wild Guess Day Activity

CPB - Animal Matching Cards

Match Up the Animals! Game

 

Test your powers of memory—or your ability to guess correctly—with this Animal Pairs matching game!

Supplies

Directions

  1. Print the Animal Pairs Cards, print two pages to have double cards. To make the game more difficult print 3 or more pages to find 3 or more groups of matching animals
  2. Color the cards
  3. Cut out the cards
  4. Lay the cards face down on a table in random order
  5. Turn over cards to look for matching pairs
  6. When you find a matching pair leave the cards face up
  7. Continue playing until you find all the matching animal pairs or groups

Picture Book Review

April 6 – April is National Poetry Month

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When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano and Julie Morstad

About the Holiday

The Academy of American Poets established National Poetry Month in 1996 to promote the enjoyment and awareness of poetry. Over the 20 years since its beginning, National Poetry Month has become the largest literary event in the world. Schools, poets, booksellers, and publishers all hold special events to honor the vital place of this well-loved art form in our culture.

Celebrate the month by attending poetry readings, reading poems by your favorite author or discovering a new poet, and creating your own poetry!

When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons

Written by Julie Fogliano | Illustrated by Julie Morstad

 

Sometimes you wish for just the right words to express a moment in time, a skip of the heart, or a glimpse of color that truly captures the elation, sadness, or awe you feel. Those words live on every page of When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons. Each season omonth of the year is represented by three to five dated poems that expose a nugget of inspiration or a spark of recognition about the natural world and our place in it.

Spring is revealed as chilly, rainy, and blooming with early flowers:

march 26: “shivering and huddled close / the forever rushing daffodils / wished they had waited”

Summer brings swimming, tomatoes, and deep dark nights:

september 10

“a star is someone else’s sun / more flicker glow than blinding / a speck of light too far for bright / and too small to make a morning”

Fall is a time for sweaters, pumpkins, and falling leaves:

november 2

“more silent than something / much noisier than nothing / the last leaf / when it landed / made a sort of sound / that no one knew they heard”

Winter  is quiet, cozy fireplaces, and snow, snow, snow:

december 21

“as if one day, the mountain decides / to put on its white furry hat / and call it winter”

december 29

“and i woke / to a morning / that was quiet / and white / the first snow / (just like magic) came / on tiptoes / overnight”

The volume begins and ends with a poem dated the same day—March 20, the vernal equinox—giving this book a cyclical form that echoes the passing of time. To accompany Julie Fogliano’s beautiful poems, Julie Morstad has created gorgeous watercolors of children experiencing each day and the changes they bring. The soft, matte pages enhance the colors of each season and the quiet reflections these poems offer.

Ages 6 and up (adults will enjoy these poems too)

Roaring Brook Press, 2016 | ISBN 978-1596438521

National Poetry Month Activity

Grow a Poem

CPB - Plant Poem

A poem often grows in your imagination like a beautiful plant—starting from the seed of an idea, breaking through your consciousness, and growing and blooming into full form. With this craft you can create a unique poem that is also an art piece!

Supplies

  • Printable Leaves Template, available here and on the blog post
  • Printable Flower Template, available here and on the blog post
  • Wooden dowel, ½-inch diameter, available in craft or hardware stores
  • Green ribbon
  • Green craft paint
  • Green paper if leaves will be preprinted
  • Colored paper if flowers will be preprinted
  • Flower pot or box
  • Oasis, clay, or dirt
  • Hole punch
  • Glue
  • Markers or pens for writing words
  • Crayons or colored pencils if children are to color leaves and flowers

Directions

  1. Paint the dowel green, let dry
  2. Print the leaves and flower templates
  3. Cut out the leaves and flowers
  4. Punch a hole in the bottom of the leaves or flowers
  5. Write words, phrases, or full sentences of your poem on the leaves and flowers (you can also write the poem after you have strung the leaves and flowers)
  6. String the leaves and flowers onto the green ribbon (if you want the poem to read from top to bottom string the words onto the ribbon in order from first to last)
  7. Attach the ribbon to the bottom of the pole with glue or tape
  8. Wrap the ribbon around the pole, leaving spaces between the ribbon
  9. Gently arrange the leaves and flowers so they stick out from the pole or look the way you want them to.
  10. Put oasis or clay in the flower pot or box
  11. Stick your poem pole in the pot
  12. Display your poem!

March 21 – World Poetry Day

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Nasty Bugs by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Will Terry Picture Book Review

About the Holiday

World Poetry Day, an initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, recognizes the important role poetry plays in people’s lives across the world and over time. The day promotes small publishers of poetry as well as oral poetry traditions and works to strengthen the connection between poetry and other forms of expression. Another objective is to “support linguistic diversity thorough poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities.”

Celebrations on this day include poetry readings, school lessons focused on poetry and poets, poetry writing sessions, and poetry readings by professional and amateur poets in schools and other venues.

Nasty Bugs

Poems Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins | Illustrated by Will Terry

 

Who in the world can resist bugs? They’re in every country, every city, every town, even every house! And they have so much going for them—lots of legs, pincher mouths, transparent wings, amazing survival skills, and so much general creepy-crawliness! Bugs may be a little (or a lot) icky, but you can’t deny that they’re fascinating.

Nasty Bugs brings together 16 poets to turn the traits of all kinds of insects, from stink bugs to chiggers to water bugs and more, into creative odes that tickle the funny bone as well as teach. Readers learn from Cynthia S. Cotton’s “Stink Bug” that “Some spread their wings in flight, / Some look scary, / some taste bad, / some use camouflage / to blend in just right.”

Rebecca Kai Dotlich exposes the boll weevil: “I am an evil weevil, / a cotton-craving beetle / whose reputation’s rotton / ‘cause I gobble crops of cotton, / yes I do.” And the Colorado Potato Beetle? Among other quirks, X. J. Kennedy reveals its name is a bit of a misnomer: “His other name’s Potato Bug. / This munching desperado / infests our gardens coast to coast. / Not just in Colorado.”

April Halprin Wayland gives voice to the fire ants’ tribal cry “All for one and one for all!” as they jump into action when “Flood waters rise! / Quick, form a ball—/ our larvae, pupae, eggs, and Mother Queen inside! / We roll this writhing globe, / take turns on top / so all breathe air, so all survive.”

“Spoiled Rotton” by J. Patrick Lewis may make grammarians squirm with this pointed description: “I’m a comma / in a drama / of disgusting devastation.” while readers will be itchin’ to know more in Rebecca Andrew Loescher’s “Ode to Chigger” with lines such as “You hatch with six small legs for running, / then grow two more—for leaps most stunning,” Poems about flies (Ann Whitford Paul), wasps (Michele Krueger), fleas (Marilyn Singer), lice (Amy Ludwig VanDerwater), ticks (Kami Kinard), termites (Alice Schertle), cockroaches (Fran Haraway), and bedbugs (Kristine O’Connell George) also contribute to the buzzzzz of this anthology.

But if bugs, well…bug you, you may find these lines in Lee Bennett Hopkins’ “Ode to a Dead Mosquito” most satisfying: “You of little brain / didn’t you know / I felt your sting / the instant you / began to drain? / So— / I whacked you. / SMACK! / You dropped.”

Will Terry lends his distinctive talent to making this book as colorful, bold, and eye-popping as nature itself. Each insect, depicted in its favorite milieu, nearly flies, creeps, or chomps it’s way off the page. Brilliant greens, reds, yellow, oranges, and blues give life to these most prolific pests, and their prominent features – whether pinchers, stingers, gnawing mandibles, or even stinky odor – are inspiringly drawn.

More facts about each bug are given in the back of the book, and are a must read. Whether insects make you squirm with discomfort or squeal with delight, Nasty Bugs is fun.

Ages 5 – 9

Paperback: Puffin, Penguin Group, 2016 | ISBN 978-0147519146

Hardcover: Dial Books for Young Readers, Penguin Group, 2012 | ISBN 978-0803737167

World Poetry Day Activity

CPB - Nasty Bugs magnet II (2)

Rockin’ Bug Magnet or Paperweight

 

On World Poetry Day it’s fun to write a poem of your own. Whether your creation is long or short, you can proudly display it using one of these Rockin’ Bug Magnets.

Supplies

Rocks, small and flat work best for magnets. Larger rocks are great for paperweights. You can find rocks in your yard, at the beach or park, or buy them from craft stores or nurseries.

  • Paint in your favorite colors
  • Paint brush
  • Small to medium round magnets, available at craft and hardware stores
  • Googly eyes
  • Strong glue

CPB - Nasty Bugs magnet (2)

Directions

  1. Wash rocks and let them dry
  2. Create your own creepy, crawly bug on the front of the rock
  3. Paint your bug
  4. Let the paint dry
  5. If you want to give your insect buggy eyes, glue googly eyes to the rock.
  6. Glue a magnet to the back of the rock
  7. Hang it on the refrigerator or any metal surface

 

If you love books, you must have caught the reading bug! Check out another great book and craft on March 2—Read Across America Day and make an “I’ve Got the Reading Bug” Bookplate for your favorite books!

CPB - Reading Bug Book Plate (2)

 

March 20 – International Day of Happiness

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Double Happiness by Nancy Tupper Ling Picture Book Review

About the Holiday

In 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution stating that happiness is a “fundamental human goal” and called for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being on all peoples.” March 20 was chosen by all 193 United Nations member states as the day to remember and honor this goal. The holiday was first celebrated in 2013.

Today you get a free pass to spend the day doing what makes you and others happy—so enjoy! If you’d like to learn more about the holiday visit the International Day of Happiness organization.

Double Happiness

Written by Nancy Tupper Ling | Illustrated by Alina Chau

 

This quiet, thoughtful picture book tells the story of a family’s move from China to America in a series of unrhymed verses that reveal the experience honestly from alternating viewpoints of a brother, Jake, and his sister, Gracie. Each page is dedicated to one or the other sibling with the boy’s poems written in blue and the girl’s in purple. In several poems the children interact with each other, the blue and purple lines acting as dialog tags.

In the first poem, The Move, Gracie stand on her doorstep surrounded by boxes and suitcases and thinks, “I won’t go! / I won’t move / away / from our city house / by the trolley tracks….” Jake is already imagining his new room in the second poem,Train. After considering different décor, he decides what he really wants is something familiar, something outside—“just one long train / that rocks and wobbles / my bed each night. /I can’t fall asleep until the train passes by.”

The siblings are each given a happiness box by their Nai Nai inGrandmother, who wisely challenges her grandchildren to “Find four treasures each, / leading from this home / to your new.” The search is taken up in the next poems—Treasure, Lucky, and Leaf—in which the kids find objects for their happiness boxes. The train and treasures for the happiness boxes are threads that unite many of the poems and the children’s experiences.

In keeping with the long hours of travel from China to the United States, the next 6 poems chronicle the brother and sister’s experience in the airport, waiting for their plane, and during the flight.

In Here the children wake up to see their new city far below them and wonder, “can I found our house / from the sky?” Marble andSadness juxtapose Jake’s happiness at finding a treasure for his box with the apprehension of Gracie.

At last the family reaches their new home by taxi. Gracie seems only to see the “piles of snow,” but Jake likes the “windy roads, lots of trees, and the curvy driveway.” In Explore Gracie and Jake walk around the countryside, and while Gracie still determines that she won’t like it, Jake hears a train and is happy. My Roomand Dinner see the kids settling in, with a photograph of the family they’ve left behind accompanying them on the table while they eat. In A Surprise, Gracie finds that her grandmother is still with her through a special scarf, and Paints resolves the move as Jake and Gracie paint their happiness boxes: Jake decorates his with a dragon and a train, while Gracie depicts her and her brother walking in the snow and “they look very, / very / happy.”

While Double Happiness tells the story of a family’s distant move, Nancy Tupper Ling’s gentle verses are appropriate for any situation involving change or uncertainty. She reminds children that happiness can be found wherever they are and all around them if they look for it. The unrhymed poems flow as freely as thoughts, fears, and unguarded moments. As Gracie and Jake resolve their feeling, readers or listeners will also see that feelings of apprehension are common, and that happiness is waiting for them.

Alina Chau’s soft, lovely watercolor illustrations are beautiful representations of Gracie and Jake’s move from the familiar surroundings of their home in China to a new home in a snowy countryside. The children’s emotions resonate as they alternate between sadness and happiness and between concrete places and their own imagination.

Ages 5 – 8

Chronicle Books, 2015 | ISBN 978-1452129181

International Day of Happiness Activity

CPB - Happiness typography

Happiness Is…Game

 

Happiness is all around you! Grab one or more friends to play a game that reveals what things make you happy. Here are two ways to play:

  1. Like the “Geography” game: the first player names something that makes them happy, the next player must think of something that starts with the last letter of the word the previous player said. The game continues with each player continuing the pattern. Players drop out as they cannot think of a word. The last player left is
  2. Within a certain time limit (depending on age), players must think of something that makes them happy. Players drop out if they cannot think of a word within the time limit. The last player left is the winner.