Handsprings Book

This picture books takes you on a journey through spring and shows you all that spring has to offer. This book is full of many different poems that really make you feel like you are going through the motions of spring. Not only are the poems amazing, but so are the illustrations that Douglas Florian created himself.

I would use this book in in a 3rd or 4th grade classroom. I would use this book in multiple ways in those classrooms. For starters, this books poems are all written in different styles, there are some where the words look like rain drops going down the page and there are some that look like a handspring. The poems match what the author is talking about and I think that is a really good concept to bring up to students, that poems do not always have to be from left to right, they can be different and creative. Another way I would use this is could be during a class meeting (like in Dr. Koch class) where we need to connect to a current event. The current event in this case would be the first day of Spring. Students could read this book and learn all about what spring is and all the many different components of spring. Lastly, I could use this book just to talk about poetry in general, we would talk about how not all poems have to rhyme every word, or be boring. Instead, poems can have fun and beautiful illustrations, they can rhyme but they do not have too, they can be silly or serious. I think this book is a wonderful example of a way to teach students that poetry is not all the same and that they are very creative.

This book was a WOW book for me because it really reminded me how much fun poetry can be. As we get older I feel like people move away from the Cat in the Hat and more towards poetry that has deep meaning. I think this book really reminded me how poetry can be fun and different, they don't have to write left to right, they can, if they want write the words as rain drops. I also really liked it because it took a simple thing like Spring and made it so interesting and fun to read about. This book was definitely a WOW book for me because it really reminded me that I love poetry.