This book contains a variety of poems with a central forest theme. The poems are easy to read and the illustrations are detailed in a good manner. This book would be great for children interested in poetry and the forest. I really enjoyed reading the poems. ( )

This book is a collection of a short poems. All of the poems are based in the forest. The animals found in the forest each have a short poem. There is a poem about a salamander who wouldn't hurt a fly. Another poem is about a raccoon who sees his reflection in a watery mirror. This book is a good example of poetry because they are short rhyming stories. Age Primary The media used in this book was watercolor.

Summary

This is a book with many short poems about animals in the forest. Each poem is dedicated to a different animal including skunks, beavers, birds, frogs and deer.

Critique

Each poem is very unique and presents each animal in a delightful way in spite of what it is saying about the animal. The authors manage to include things like the smell of a skunk as a part of woodsy cologne and make a snail race sound fast paced and exciting. It is an easy to read book for children and contains lots of figures of speech. In this book you can almost smell, feel and hear the forest in a pleasant kind of way.

Prompts

P3. Figure of Speech - metaphor
P4. Figure of Speech - personification

Craft Element

Capitalize on the authors' use of figures of speech to have a figure of speech scavenger hunt.

I thought this poetry collection was hilarious, witty, and something I could see adding to my second grade poetry unit! It's nice to discover exciting poetry that will inspire kids to write their own, and enjoy doing so! ( )

I really like this poem for several reasons, two of them being the language and characters in the story. The author does a great job of using figurative language to creatively describe the actions of the animals in the poem. The poem is short and very clear for children to understand; it also has imaginative elements that make it fun to read. In one descriptive part of the poem, the author writes:

“Bundled up in furry coats,
Belted out their heist notes,
They lope across the winter woods
To serenade the neighborhoods.”

I also really enjoyed how the poem contains personification as the author writes about coyotes singing through the night. These components make the poem interesting and fun to read as it captivates the audience. The poem contains a rhyming pattern which is also fun to read as the rhythm flows so smoothly and characters’ actions are described. The main message expressed in this poem is that coyotes are vocal animals and howling is the only they way the can communicate through the night. ( )