Book Giveaway – GREAT MORNING!

Book Giveaway — GREAT Morning! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong 

Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong have a new book of poetry—for principals! GREAT Morning! Poems for School Leaders is their brand-new anthology of 75 poems by 50+ poets. Three lucky people will win a copy each. For a chance to win, leave a comment—or reblog, tweet, or mention this post on Facebook with a link for additional chances to win (let us know in the comments where you shared this post). Next Friday, check here to discover the winners. 

Link to their website: http://pomelobooks.com

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

GREAT MORNING! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud features poems with ready-to-read intros and intriguing facts for a full year of morning announcements at school! 75 poems by 50+ poets cover topics such as:

safety drills, school forms, diversity, inclusion, transportation, kindness, compassion, willpower, mindfulness, volunteerism, reaching out, community, science, technology, and more.

Create a school culture of positivity using poetry as a tool! These poems are short and easy to read; they take just a minute to share. Readers can be principals, student leaders, office staff, custodians, lunch staff, specialist teachers, parents, and community guests.

50+ poets contributed poems to this book:

Alma Flor Ada, Brod Bagert, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Robyn Hood Black, Susan Blackaby, Merry Bradshaw, Lydia Breiseth, Joseph Bruchac, Kate Coombs, Cynthia Cotten, Kristy Dempsey, Margarita Engle, Janet Clare Fagal, Catherine Flynn, Xelena González, Lorie Ann Grover, Mary Lee Hahn, Avis Harley, Jane Heitman Healy, Sara Holbrook, Ann Ingalls, Julie Larios, Renée M. LaTulippe, B.J. Lee, Suzy Levinson, Elaine Magliaro, Kenn Nesbitt, Eric Ode, Linda Sue Park, Ann Whitford Paul, Greg Pincus, Jack Prelutsky, Bob Raczka, Heidi Bee Roemer, Caroline Starr Rose, Laura Purdie Salas, Michael Salinger, Darren Sardelli, Liz Garton Scanlon, Michelle Schaub, Laura Shovan, Buffy Silverman, Eileen Spinelli, Traci Sorell, Elizabeth Steinglass, Holly Thompson, Linda Kulp Trout, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Carol Varsalona, April Halprin Wayland, Carole Boston Weatherford, Kay Winters, Allan Wolf, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Janet Wong, and Jane Yolen.

Transform your regular “good morning” welcome into something fun and inspirational—and make any morning a GREAT Morning!

https://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=great+morning+poems+for+school+leaders+to+read+aloud&sprefix=great+morning%2Caps%2C158&crid=2IYO9P1TYSSTI

Features the work of the creative team of Sylvia Vardell link: http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2018/07/good-morning-no-great-morning.html and Janet Wong, link: http://www.janetwong.com, as well as 50+ contributing poets. (177 pages. K-8.)

This book aims to contribute to a positive school culture that emphasizes kindness and respect with morning announcement poems that have intriguing “Did You Know?” intros and engaging “Follow Up” closings. Elementary school principals are envisioned as the primary readers of this book, but guest readers can include the office staff, lunch staff, nurse, custodian, volunteer parents, local celebrities, and student leaders. The “linked poems” identified in the “Connect” sections are ideal for teachers, reading specialists, and librarians to share along with “Hidden Language Skills” for each poem that present interesting tidbits about punctuation, capitalization, or poetic forms and techniques.

Here’s an example featuring “Time for Lunch” by Caroline Starr Rose, linked with “Things Not to Do” by Eileen Spinelli.

WHAT INSPIRED THIS BOOK?

For years, teachers have been using poetry to engage children—and not just in language arts. Poetry is a great tool to introduce vocabulary and reinforce concepts all across the curriculum, especially in social studies and science. We started asking ourselves: how can we harness the power of poetry to make positive changes school-wide? And the answer was: start at the top—at the beginning of the day, with the principal. When children hear poems over the morning announcements, they get the message loud and clear: poetry has power!

We started by making a list of topics: school forms, safety, transportation, rules, inclusion, diversity, health and wellness, leadership and respect, gratitude, and so on. We originally envisioned a much smaller book. In the first few drafts, the only poems in the book were poems written by Janet. In later drafts, though, we started including exemplar poems that had appeared in previous books from The Poetry Friday Anthology series—and that were right on target in terms of our themes. Ultimately we decided to expand the book in order to include brand new poems, as well; the next thing we knew, our book was twice as large as we’d envisioned. And yet there still are many, many poets we wish we could’ve invited as contributors; we now have approximately 175 poets represented in our books! 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sylvia Vardell is Professor at Texas Woman’s University and teaches children’s and young adult literature. She has published five books on literature, plus more than 25 book chapters and 100 journal articles. Her current work focuses on poetry for young people, including a blog, Poetry for Children. Link: http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2018/07/good-morning-no-great-morning.html She lives in Dallas, TX.

Janet Wong link: http://www.janetwong.com is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former lawyer who became a children’s poet. Her work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other shows. She is the author of 30 books for children on identity, chess, creative recycling, yoga, and more. She lives in Princeton, NJ.

Together, Vardell and Wong are the creative forces behind The Poetry Friday Anthology and Poetry Friday Power Book series. ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Sylvia Vardell is Professor at Texas Woman’s University and teaches children’s and young adult literature. She has published five books on literature, plus more than 25 book chapters and 100 journal articles. Her current work focuses on poetry for young people, including a blog, Poetry for Children. Link: http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2018/07/good-morning-no-great-morning.html Her favorite pets are dogs and she’s had three of them (Luther, Yenta, and Caesar, each for many years), as well as Leonardo the tortoise, and Pecky the parakeet. She lives in Dallas, TX.

Janet Wong link: http://www.janetwong.com is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former lawyer who became a children’s poet. Her work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other shows. She is the author of 30 books for children on identity, chess, creative recycling, yoga, and more. She has had dozens of pets, including birds, fish, a frog, hamsters, lizards, turtles, a cat, and favorite dogs named Bernadette, Coco, Nissa, and Angel. She lives in Princeton, NJ.

 

Together, Vardell and Wong are the creative forces behind The Poetry Friday Anthology series and the Poetry Friday Power Book series. You can learn more about their books at PomeloBooks.com.

Books by Vardell and Wong have won numerous awards and accolades, including the ILA Notable Books for a Global Society (NBGS), NCTE Poetry Notables, Children’s Poet Laureate Pick of the Month, CBC Hot Off the Press, and NSTA Recommends.

Thank you Sylvia and Janet for sharing your journey with us and offering one lucky winner a copy of your new book, GREAT MORNING!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy