The book that I chose is “A little
Bitty man an others poem for the Very Young” by Halfdan Rasmussen, and
illustrated by Marilyn Nelson & Pamela Espeland.
Halfdan Rasmussen is highly respected in this
native Denmark for both his infectious children’s verse and his adult –
oriented poems on social issues and human rights. Prior to his death, he
granted Marilyn Nelson express permission to produce English versions of his
work.
This book has thirty poems, each poem
has different genre, example the poems "A little Bitty man", “What thing
are for”, “A miracle the Elf", " Little cloud", "The stranger Old owl" , are of Fantasy genre category on the other hands the poems “What things are for”, “What come
next”, “Emergency” , “Dr. Dorothy “, “Those
fierce grown –up soldiers”, “Days “, are
Contemporary Realistic Fiction genre.
The social justice is evident in the
13 poems, but more, the elements of social action, respect for others, growing
awareness, self love and knowledge. The teacher can use these items for personal growth of its students.
This book is a good starting point for teaching about refers to love animals,
family, environment awareness, creating an awareness of everything our surrounding,
correlating with the analysis of the poetic verses, its structure, rhythm and
main message.
I would like to add that this poetry book , used some poetic technic such as : Repetition, in the most poetry of book using of word over and over for effect.
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The elf puts on his winter coat and puts his winter hat on, finds a muffler for his throat in his drawer-puts that on. ( The words is ON)
Rhythm ( words whose ending sounds are alike . May occur at end of lines (end Rhyme) or from the end of one line to the beginnings or middle of the next (link rhyme) . Example:
When Dorothy told her dolly, You look so pale today...( dolly - today)
Alliteration the repetition of initial consonant sounds at close intervals.
Example:
Little Cloud went for a walk
above the highest steeple,
cast a shadow on a wall,
looked down at the people.
(The words Walk and Wall )
With this book it seems like there are many options for classroom application. Do you think it would be beneficial if the students researched about Denmark and the history of the stories to better apply to these poems? Also, this book definitely seems like it would be great to have the students make their own short poems after. Students can make poems about social justice issues that they are passionate about as well! Looks like a very interesting book :)
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that this book would be great to incorporate into a lesson of personal growth. Since this book has 13 different poems, I think it opens up the door for students to make connections with the different styles and themes of the poems. From the picture you posted this book looks like it has wonderful illustrations, I'm curious as to what the inside looks. Are their colorful illustrations that add to the text in this book or is it black and white without any photos? I am fascinated that this book covers so many of the elements of Social Justice and I can't wait to read it to figure out how they can be applied to my classroom and themes/topics that come up!
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