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Where are the Wild Things?

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Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.

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The conjunctions know how to join things together and get things done. And that makes them the perfect parts of speech to go on a scoutin...

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Variety of books with Synonyms and Antonyms. 

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Variety of books with Synonyms and Antonyms. 

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Below are clever, educational books that are perfect for teaching antonyms and synonyms. This isn't generally a subject that children struggle with, as the base concepts of the same and opposite are fairly straightforward. The trick is getting children to see how the proper use of synonyms and antonyms can make writing much more interesting, precise, and exciting.

The books below can help. Many of the following books were written expressly for the purpose of teaching antonyms and synonyms to children. Some of these books define antonyms and synonyms for younger children, then progress into teaching why they make a difference in writing. And, a few of the books below were added to this list just because they just happen to be full of antonyms and synonyms! Fun. :)

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Teaching Antonyms and Synonyms with Children's Books -- BEST BOOKS LIST

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Below are clever, educational books that are perfect for teaching antonyms and synonyms. This isn't generally a subject that children struggle with, as the base concepts of the same and opposite are fairly straightforward. The trick is getting children to see how the proper use of synonyms and antonyms can make writing much more interesting, precise, and exciting.

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Moo moo! Hoo hoo! Cock-a-doodle-doo! Oh, the wonderful sounds Mr. Brown can do. Now see if you can do them too! This fabulous book is ide...

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Assonance and Alliteration.

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Tuesday, March 22-Alliteration and Assonance-Fabulous fun!
A critique friend recently told me that she had read that editors don't want books with alliteration any more and that it can look amateurish in our writing. A quick peek at a stack of picture books will show us that alliteration and assonance is alive and well. I suspect when editors, agents, and others say they don't want alliteration (or rhyme, or any numbering of things), what they are actually saying is they don't want any more BAD alliteration (rhyme, or any number of other things)!

Sometimes writers might overdo alliteration (or any number of other things!). I think writing craft should be used like sprinkles on a cupcake. You'd never take a handful of sprinkles and jam your hand on top of a cupcake. You'd sprinkle those tasty little candies gently across the top of the icing. The same with writing craft, effective writers sprinkle craft throughout their manuscripts with style and finesse.

Let's look to Ralph Fletcher for definitions of alliteration and assonance.

Alliteration: the repetition of the initial sounds in two or more words. Writers use alliteration to make the sentences flow more easily, to reinforce a particular sound, and to fix the sound in the ear of the reader.

the repetition of vowel sounds inside a series of words in a line or a sentence. For instance, listen to the series of short i sounds in this phrase: "the inquisitive fingers of the wind."

From: Pyrotechnics On the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing by Ralph Fletcher, pp. 130-131.

Now the Robinition: Assonance is artsy. Alliteration is fun! Honestly, both can add humor, warmth, fun, and charm. I love writing with alliteration and I think kids love to hear and read it and they think of alliteration as tongue twisters. Assonance takes more skill (in my opinion) and I have lots more to learn about assonance and need to practice it much more.

The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill and Laura Huliska-Beith is a fun and effective example of assonance.

If kids ever crossed her,

She'd push 'em and smoosh 'em,

Hammer 'em, slammer 'em.

Kitz and kajammer 'em.

"Say WHAT?" Megan growled.

"Say WHO?" Mean Jean howled.

"Say YOU! Just who do you think you're talking to/"

Mean Jean always got her way ,

The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill and Laura Huliska-Beith, pp. 7-8

I sometimes let myself get trapped with using one initial sound too much or overdoing that one sound. In this excerpt from The Magic Hat, Mem Fox demonstrates how to use alliteration and to vary and "spread out" the use of it. I think this shows alliteration at its best . . . little surprising gems of repetition.

At the wonderful wizards with sparkling eyes,

He took from his beard, with a nod and a wink

A wand, which he waved-and what you think think?

From: The Magic Hat by Mem Fox and Tricia Tusa, p. 24

Each of his books seems to reveal a different side of Lester Laminack. But over and over again I get the distinct impression that Lester is telling the stories of his life. In his sweet and gentle book The Sunsets of Miss Olivia Wiggins, he uses alliteration in a soft and gentle way. Instead of standing out as a fun, ear-tasing emphasis, the alliteration in this passage seems to reiterate the condition of Miss Olivia Wiggins.

Miss Olivia Wiggins sits and looks at nothing and at everything, all at the same time.

She spends much of each day just sitting. Sitting with her hands folded in her lap. Hands once strong, with nimble fingers that milked cows and gathered fresh eggs. Hands that shelled peas, shucked corns, quilted bed covers. Hands that braided hair and soother babies. Hands that loved.

Now those hands are fragile, frozen, folded in her lap.

From: The Sunsets of Miss Olivia Wiggins by Lester L. Laminack and Constance R. Bergum, p. 9
ASSONANCE AND ALLITERATION COMBO
Leave it to that wacky and fun Margie Palatini to mix alliteration and assonance . . . . and, oh, what a delight!

Gritch the Witch woke up grouchy, grumpy, and very hungry. Her belly grumbled for something delicious.

It wasn't purple mouse-tail stew.

No, she ate that yesterday for lunch.

Maybe some mashed dragon-tongue pudding?

No. Gritch wasn't in the mood for anything quite that sweet.

Perhaps a taste of boil black buzzard feet.

That always made her mouth water.

From: Piggie Pie! by Margie Palatini and Howard Fine, p. 4

1. Choose an initial sound (for instance r) and write a sentence using alliteration (for instance: Red rhinos rollerbladed rapidly). Don't worry about making sense, have fun. Keep creating those alliteration sentences. Next, try out assonance using a repeating internal vowel sound.

2. Now do my favorite thing-go on a hunt! Go hunting in picture books for alliteration and assonance!

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Tuesday, March 22-Alliteration and Assonance-Fabulous fun! A critique friend recently told me that she had read that editors don't want books with alliteration any more and that it can look amateurish in our writing. A quick peek at a stack of picture books will show us that alliteration and assonance is alive and well.

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The web site and blog of children's author-illustrator Loreen Leedy. Find out about her informational picture books, book activities, and creative classroom resources.

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Haiku is a poem of ancient Japanese origin. It contains 17 syllables in 3 lines of 5-7-5. Haiku poems are typically about nature and usually about a specific season. It is easy to feel a sense of perfection when viewing a perfectly formed Haiku.

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Sometimes it gets lost that a lot of the amazing books we read to children, especially infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, are actually poetry. With rhythm and rhyme, the stories that unfold across the pages of these picture books are oftentimes their first introduction to poems. Reading poetry has numerous benefits for building early literacy skills, including rhythm development and recognition, voice inflection and pitch, memorization skills, self-expression, and vocabulary enhancement. I've rounded up 12 great poetry books for the littlest of children - some are rhyming tales with single storylines and some are poetry collections, and all make great additions to the family library.
Does your family have a beloved poetry book? Tell us about it below!

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My First Poems: 12 Great Poetry Books for Kids Ages 0 - 4 | Brightly

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Sometimes it gets lost that a lot of the amazing books we read to children, especially infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, are actually poetry. With rhythm and rhyme, the stories that unfold across the pages of these picture books are oftentimes their first introduction to poems. Reading poetry has numerous benefits for building early literacy skills, including rhythm development and recognition, voice inflection and pitch, memorization skills, self-expression, and vocabulary enhancement.

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Today is the anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost's iconic poem " Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," a fact that spurred the Literary Hub office into a long conversation about their favorite poems, the most iconic poems written in English, and which poems we should all have already read (or at least be reading next). Turns out, despite frequent (false) claims that poetry is dead and/or irrelevant and/or boring, there are plenty of poems that have sunk deep into our collective consciousness as cultural icons. (What makes a poem iconic? For our purposes here, it's primarily a matter of cultural ubiquity, though unimpeachable excellence helps any case.) So for those of you who were not present for our epic office argument, I have listed some of them here.

NB that I limited myself to one poem per poet-which means that the impetus for this list actually gets bumped for the widely quoted (and misunderstood) "The Road Not Taken," but so it goes. I also excluded book-length poems, because they're really a different form. Finally, despite the headline, I'm sure there are many, many iconic poems out there that I've missed-so feel free to extend this list in the comments. But for now, happy reading (and re-reading):
William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow"
The most anthologized poem of the last 25 years for a reason. See also: " This is Just to Say," which, among other things, has spawned a host of memes and parodies.
T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"
Without a doubt one of the most important poems of the 20th century. "It has never lost its glamour," Paul Muldoon observed. "It has never failed to be equal to both the fracture of its own era and what, alas, turned out to be the even greater fracture of the ongoing 20th century and now, it seems, the 21st century." See also: " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Otherwise known as " the most misread poem in America." See also: " Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." And " Birches." All begin in delight and end in wisdom, as Frost taught us great poems should.
Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool"
This blew my mind in high school, and I wasn't the only one.
Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art"
Bishop's much loved and much discussed ode to loss, which Claudia Roth Pierpont called "a triumph of control, understatement, wit. Even of self-mockery, in the poetically pushed rhyme word "vaster," and the ladylike, pinkies-up "shan't." An exceedingly rare mention of her mother-as a woman who once owned a watch. A continent standing in for losses larger than itself."
Emily Dickinson, "Because I could not stop for Death -"
The truth is, there are lots of equally iconic Dickinson poems, so consider this a stand-in for them all. Though, as Jay Parini has noted, this poem is perfect, "one of Dickinson's most compressed and chilling attempts to come to terms with mortality."
Langston Hughes, "Harlem"
One of the defining works of the Harlem Renaissance, by its greatest poet. It also, of course, gave inspiration and lent a title to another literary classic: Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
Sylvia Plath, "Daddy"
To be quite honest, my favorite Plath poem is " The Applicant." But "Daddy" is still the most iconic, especially if you've ever heard her read it aloud.
Robert Hayden, "Middle Passage"
The most famous poem, and a terribly beautiful one, by our country's first African-American Poet Laureate (though the position was then called Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress). See also: " Those Winter Sundays, which despite what I wrote above may be equally as famous."
Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
This one takes the cake for the sheer number of "thirteen ways of looking at x" knockoffs that I've seen. But please see also: " The Emperor of Ice-Cream."
Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"
With On the Road, the most enduring piece of literature from the mythologized Beat Generation, and of the two, the better one. Even the least literate of your friends would probably recognize the line "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness . . ."
Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise"
So iconic, it was a Google Doodle.
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
I mean, have you seen Interstellar? (Or Dangerous Minds or Independence Day?)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"
Or Citizen Kane? (See also: " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.")
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"
. . . or Breaking Bad?
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"
We had some votes for " Annabel Lee," on account of its earworminess, but among the many appearances and references of Poe in pop culture, "The Raven" is certainly the most common.
Louise Glück, "Mock Orange"
One of those poems passed hand to hand between undergraduates who will grow up to become writers.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"
Dunbar's most famous poem, and arguably his best, which biographer Paul Revell described as "a moving cry from the heart of suffering. The poem anticipates, and presents in terms of passionate personal regret, the psychological analysis of the fact of blackness in Frantz Fanon's Peau Noire, Masques Blancs, with a penetrating insight into the reality of the black man's plight in America."
e.e. cummings, "i carry your heart with me"
As quoted at many, many weddings.
Marianne Moore, "Poetry"
All else aside, the fact that it starts with hating poetry has made it a favorite among schoolchildren of all ages. See also: " The Fish."
Rudyard Kipling, "If"
According to someone in the Literary Hub office who would know, this poem is all over sports stadiums and locker rooms. Serena Williams is into it, which is proof enough for me.
Gertrude Stein, "Sacred Emily"
Because a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
William Blake, "The Tyger"
Tyger, tyger, burning bright . . . Blake famously wrote music to go along with his poems-the originals have been lost, but this verse has been widely interpreted by musicians as well as repeated to many sleepy children.
Robert Burns, "To a Mouse"
As (further) immortalized by John Steinbeck.
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"
The most famous poem from Whitman's celebrated Leaves of Grass, and selected by Jay Parini as the best American poem of all time. "Whitman reinvents American poetry in this peerless self-performance," Parini writes, "finding cadences that seem utterly his own yet somehow keyed to the energy and rhythms of a young nation waking to its own voice and vision. He calls to every poet after him, such as Ezra Pound, who notes in "A Pact" that Whitman "broke the new wood.""
Philip Larkin, "This Be The Verse"
We know, we know, it's all your parents' fault.
William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18" ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?")
Like Dickinson, we could have put several of Shakespeare's sonnets in this slot. Most people only recognize the first couplets anyway.
Audre Lorde, "Power"
A uniquely American poem, written in 1978, that should be outdated by now, but still is not.
Frank O'Hara, "Meditations in an Emergency"
Courtesy Don Draper, circa season 2.
John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields"
Probably the most iconic-and most quoted-poem from WWI. Particularly popular in Canada, where McCrae is from.
Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
Still the most iconic nonsense poem ever written.
W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
Otherwise known as " the most thoroughly pillaged piece of literature in English." Just ask our hero Joan Didion. Joan knows what's up.

*

One more thing. The above list is too white and male and old, because our literary iconography is still too white and male and old. So, here are some other poems that we here at the Literary Hub office also consider iconic, though they are perhaps not as widely anthologized/quoted/referenced/used to amp up the corny drama in films as some of the above (yet).
Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck"
One of my very favorites from Rich's rich (sorry) oeuvre. I read it in college and have been quoting it ever since.
Patricia Lockwood, "Rape Joke"
The poem that officially broke the internet in 2013.
Lucille Clifton, "Homage to My Hips"
She's just . . . so . . . damn . . . sexy. See also: " To a Dark Moses" and " won't you celebrate with me," because Clifton is the greatest.
Lucie Brock-Broido, "Am Moor"
This happens to be my own personal favorite Brock-Broido poem, though almost any would do here.
Sappho, "The Anactoria Poem" (tr. Jim Powell)
I'm breaking my rule about the poems being written in English to include Sappho, whose work is uniquely appealing for being almost lost to us. The Anactoria poem is her most famous, though I have to say I also have a major soft spot for this fragment, translated by Anne Carson:

And when I say "soft spot" I mean it sends me into ecstatic fits.
Kevin Young, "Errata"
The greatest wedding poem that no one ever reads at their wedding.
Mark Leidner, "Romantic Comedies"
For those who enjoy snorting their coffee while reading poetry.
Muriel Rukeyser, "The Book of the Dead"
A long, legendary poem, written in 1938, about the illness of a group of miners in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. "Coming hot on the heels of modernist long poem masterpieces like Eliot's "The Wasteland" or Stein's "Tender Buttons," the poem's deliberate lucidity isn't just an aesthetic choice-it's a political one," Colleen Abel wrote in Ploughshares. "Rukeyser, from the beginning of "Book of the Dead," seeks the reader's participation in the journey to Gauley Bridge. The reader is implicated from the first section, "The Road," in which Rukeyser calls outward to her audience: "These are roads you take when you think of your country." The disaster Rukeyser is about to explore is a part of "our country" and the reader will have no choice but to confront it."
Carolyn Forché, "The Colonel"
What you have heard is true. This poem is unforgettable.
Rita Dove, "After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed"
Again, a thousand poems by Rita Dove would do; this is the one that sticks in my brain.
Nikki Giovanni, "Ego Tripping"
I mean, "I am so hip even my errors are correct" should probably be your mantra. Watch Giovanni perform her poem here.
Terrance Hayes, "The Golden Shovel"
Hayes's homage to Gwendolyn Brooks is a masterpiece in its own right.

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The 32 Most Iconic Poems in the English Language

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Today is the anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost's iconic poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," a fact that spurred the Literary Hub office into a long conversat...

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I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

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I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

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The 10,000 acres of saltmarsh and 65,000 acres of tidal sandbanks and mudflats around the Wash on the east coast are a haven for wildlife, with about 500,000 wildfowl wintering there and common seals breeding there in summer, when the saltmarsh is abundant with wildflowers. This practical guide focuses on 800 wildlife-rich locations in the UK and advises on what to see, when to visit and how to get there, with detailed mapping and over 500 photographs.

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Where to See Wildlife in Britain and Ireland

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DetailsThe 10,000 acres of saltmarsh and 65,000 acres of tidal sandbanks and mudflats around the Wash on the east coast are a haven for wildlife, with about 500,000 wildfowl wintering there and common seals breeding there in summer, when the saltmarsh is abundant with wildflowers.

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I studied Seamus Heaney with a Secondary student we learnt about his bog poetry, Poets history.

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Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994). He died in 2013.

Heaney has attracted a readership on several continents and has won prestigious literary awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize. As Blake Morrison noted in his work Seamus Heaney, the author is "that rare thing, a poet rated highly by critics and academics yet popular with 'the common reader.'" Part of Heaney's popularity stems from his subject matter-modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural culture and language overrun by English rule. The New York Review of Books essayist Richard Murphy described Heaney as "the poet who has shown the finest art in presenting a coherent vision of Ireland, past and present." Heaney's poetry is known for its aural beauty and finely-wrought textures. Often described as a regional poet, he is also a traditionalist who deliberately gestures back towards the "pre-modern" worlds of William Wordsworth and John Clare.

Heaney was born and raised in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland. The impact of his surroundings and the details of his upbringing on his work are immense. As a Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland, Heaney once described himself in the New York Times Book Review as someone who "emerged from a hidden, a buried life and entered the realm of education." Eventually studying English at Queen's University, Heaney was especially moved by artists who created poetry out of their local and native backgrounds-authors such as Ted Hughes, Patrick Kavanagh, and Robert Frost. Recalling his time in Belfast, Heaney once noted: "I learned that my local County Derry [childhood] experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to 'the modern world' was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it." Heaney's work has always been most concerned with the past, even his earliest poems of the 1960s. According to Morrison, a "general spirit of reverence toward the past helped Heaney resolve some of his awkwardness about being a writer: he could serve his own community by preserving in literature its customs and crafts, yet simultaneously gain access to a larger community of letters." Indeed, Heaney's earliest poetry collections- Death of a Naturalist (1966) and Door into the Dark (1969)-evoke "a hard, mainly rural life with rare exactness," according to critic and Parnassus contributor Michael Wood. Using descriptions of rural laborers and their tasks and contemplations of natural phenomena-filtered through childhood and adulthood-Heaney "makes you see, hear, smell, taste this life, which in his words is not provincial, but parochial; provincialism hints at the minor or the mediocre, but all parishes, rural or urban, are equal as communities of the human spirit," noted Newsweek correspondent Jack Kroll.

As a poet from Northern Ireland, Heaney used his work to reflect upon the "Troubles," the often-violent political struggles that plagued the country during Heaney's young adulthood. The poet sought to weave the ongoing Irish troubles into a broader historical frame embracing the general human situation in the books Wintering Out (1973) and North (1975). While some reviewers criticized Heaney for being an apologist and mythologizer, Morrison suggested that Heaney would never reduce political situations to false simple clarity, and never thought his role should be as a political spokesman. The author "has written poems directly about the Troubles as well as elegies for friends and acquaintances who have died in them; he has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance," noted Morrison. "Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however 'committed,' can influence the course of history." In the New Boston Review, Shaun O'Connell contended that even Heaney's most overtly political poems contain depths that subtly alter their meanings. "Those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so," O'Connell stated, "though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright." As poet and critic Stephen Burt wrote, Heaney was "resistant to dogma yet drawn to the numinous." Helen Vendler described him as "a poet of the in-between."

Heaney's first foray into the world of translation began with the Irish lyric poem Buile Suibhne. The work concerns an ancient king who, cursed by the church, is transformed into a mad bird-man and forced to wander in the harsh and inhospitable countryside. Heaney's translation of the epic was published as Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish (1984). New York Times Book Review contributor Brendan Kennelly deemed the poem "a balanced statement about a tragically unbalanced mind. One feels that this balance, urbanely sustained, is the product of a long, imaginative bond between Mr. Heaney and Sweeney." This bond is extended into Heaney's 1984 volume Station Island, where a series of poems titled "Sweeney Redivivus" take up Sweeney's voice once more. The poems reflect one of the book's larger themes, the connections between personal choices, dramas and losses and larger, more universal forces such as history and language. In The Haw Lantern (1987)Heaney extends many of these preoccupations. W.S. DiPiero described Heaney's focus: "Whatever the occasion-childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present-Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom."

With the publication of Selected Poems, 1966-1987 (1990) Heaney marked the beginning of a new direction in his career. Poetry contributor William Logan commented of this new direction, "The younger Heaney wrote like a man possessed by demons, even when those demons were very literary demons; the older Heaney seems to wonder, bemusedly, what sort of demon he has become himself." In Seeing Things (1991) Heaney demonstrates even more clearly this shift in perspective. Jefferson Hunter, reviewing the book for the Virginia Quarterly Review, maintained that collection takes a more spiritual, less concrete approach. "Words like 'spirit' and 'pure'... have never figured largely in Heaney's poetry," Hunter explained. However, in Seeing Things Heaney uses such words to "create a new distanced perspective and indeed a new mood" in which "'things beyond measure' or 'things in the offing' or 'the longed-for' can sometimes be sensed, if never directly seen." The Spirit Level (1996) continues to explore humanism, politics and nature.

Always respectfully received, Heaney's later work, including his second collected poems, Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 (1998), has been lavishly praised. Reviewing Opened Ground for the New York Times Book Review, Edward Mendelson commented that the volume "eloquently confirms [Heaney's] status as the most skillful and profound poet writing in English today." With Electric Light (2001), Heaney broadened his range of allusion and reference to Homer and Virgil, while continuing to make significant use of memory, elegy and the pastoral tradition. According to John Taylor in Poetry, Heaney "notably attempts, as an aging man, to re-experience childhood and early-adulthood perceptions in all their sensate fullness." Paul Mariani in America found Electric Light "a Janus-faced book, elegiac" and "heartbreaking even." Mariani noted in particular Heaney's frequent elegies to other poets and artists, and called Heaney "one of the handful writing today who has mastered that form as well."

Heaney's next volume District and Circle (2006) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, the most prestigious poetry award in the UK. Commenting on the volume for the New York Times, critic Brad Leithauser found it remarkably consistent with the rest of Heaney's oeuvre. But while Heaney's career may demonstrate an "of-a-pieceness" not common in poetry, Leithauser found that Heaney's voice still "carries the authenticity and believability of the plainspoken-even though (herein his magic) his words are anything but plainspoken. His stanzas are dense echo chambers of contending nuances and ricocheting sounds. And his is the gift of saying something extraordinary while, line by line, conveying a sense that this is something an ordinary person might actually say."

Heaney's prose constitutes an important part of his work. Heaney often used prose to address concerns taken up obliquely in his poetry. In The Redress of Poetry (1995), according to James Longenbach in the Nation, "Heaney wants to think of poetry not only as something that intervenes in the world, redressing or correcting imbalances, but also as something that must be redressed-re-established, celebrated as itself." The book contains a selection of lectures the poet delivered at Oxford University as Professor of Poetry. Heaney's Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, 1971-2001 (2002) earned the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, the largest annual prize for literary criticism in the English language. John Carey in the London Sunday Times proposed that Heaney's "is not just another book of literary criticism...It is a record of Seamus Heaney's thirty-year struggle with the demon of doubt. The questions that afflict him are basic. What is the good of poetry? How can it contribute to society? Is it worth the dedication it demands?" Heaney himself described his essays as "testimonies to the fact that poets themselves are finders and keepers, that their vocation is to look after art and life by being discoverers and custodians of the unlooked for."

As a translator, Heaney's most famous work is the translation of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (2000). Considered groundbreaking because of the freedom he took in using modern language, the book is largely credited with revitalizing what had become something of a tired chestnut in the literary world. Malcolm Jones in Newsweek stated: "Heaney's own poetic vernacular-muscular language so rich with the tones and smell of earth that you almost expect to find a few crumbs of dirt clinging to his lines-is the perfect match for the Beowulf poet's Anglo-Saxon...As retooled by Heaney, Beowulf should easily be good for another millennium." Though he has also translated Sophocles, Heaney remains most adept with medieval works. He translated Robert Henryson's Middle Scots classic and follow-up to Chaucer, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables in 2009.

In 2009, Seamus Heaney turned 70. A true event in the poetry world, Ireland marked the occasion with a 12-hour broadcast of archived Heaney recordings. It was also announced that two-thirds of the poetry collections sold in the UK the previous year had been Heaney titles. Such popularity was almost unheard of in the world of contemporary poetry, and yet Heaney's voice is unabashedly grounded in tradition. Heaney's belief in the power of art and poetry, regardless of technological change or economic collapse, offers hope in the face of an increasingly uncertain future. Asked about the value of poetry in times of crisis, Heaney answered it is precisely at such moments that people realize they need more to live than economics: "If poetry and the arts do anything," he said, "they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness."

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Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies.

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The Lion the Which and the wardrobe. Free read online. 

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The Lion the Which and the wardrobe. Free read online. 

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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia (Publication Order) #1) When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy took their first steps into the world behind the magic wardrobe, little do they realise what adventures are about to unfold. And as the story of Narnia begins to unfold, so to does a classic tale that has enchanted readers of all ages for over half a century. This stunning version of the classic The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, illustrated by Christian Burningham, comes with a special recording of the story which features a full production and specially composed music which transports the listener straight to the heart of Narnia. An absolute must for Narnia fans, and an excellent way of introducing the magical story to a new generation of readers. - -Susan Harrison

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Read The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe The free online novel

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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia (Publication Order) #1) When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy took their first steps into the world behind the magic wardrobe, little do they realise what adventures are about to unfold.

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Oxford Reading tree great for matching N.C objectives and phonics levels. 

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Oxford Reading tree great for matching N.C objectives and phonics levels. 

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Songbirds

Levelled phonics books from the fabulous Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo.

Read Write Inc. Phonics

A step-by-step phonics programme to support reading. Learn at home with Read Write Inc. Phonics

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Free eBook library | Oxford Owl from Oxford University Press

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Browse our library of free children's eBooks to read with your child including Oxford Reading Tree adventures with Biff, Chip and Kipper.

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Lived in Chatham Kent. . . .

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Intro

In his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens (1812-70) introduced Sam Weller, the smart-talking Cockney of the White Hart Inn. Weller and Dickens soon became household names. Dickens' striking use of colloquial expressions and adapted spelling to convey a sense of the natural rhythms of London speech became a hallmark of his characterisations.

On this page

Dickens exploits several linguistic features to capture Weller's Cockney (London) dialect. Consonants are frequently omitted, as in 'ere (here), as are vowels or whole syllables as in 'tain't (it isn't) and 'cept (except). Spelling is used to suggest a different vowel quality, as in gal (girl), or socially marked pronunciation such as nothin'. Dialect grammar appears in ain't (isn't), a lookin' and more tenderer. Perhaps the most unfamiliar feature to us is the switching of v and w in words such as inwariable and wery.

Shelfmark: C.144.b.1.

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In his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens (1812-70) introduced Sam Weller, the smart-talking Cockney of the White Hart Inn. Weller and Dickens soon became household names. Dickens' striking use of colloquial expressions and adapted spelling to convey a sense of the natural rhythms of London speech became a hallmark of his characterisations.

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food fractions (math for the real world)

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Food Fractions (Math for the Real World)

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Buy Food Fractions (Math for the Real World) by Moore, Sharon (ISBN: 9780823973293) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Create fraction Art by Ed Emberley.

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Picture Pie - Ed Emberley (BOOK ONLY) - Celebrate Simple

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Handa's Surprise: Amazon.co.uk: Browne, Eileen: Books

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GREEN BANK HOTEL,
FALMOUTH,
10 th May 1907,

My darling Mouse
This is a birth-day letter,
to wish you very many happy returns
of the day. I wish we could have
been all together, but we shall
meet again soon, & then we will
have treats. I have sent you two
picture-books, one about Brer
Rabbit, from Daddy, & one about
some other animals, from Mummy.
And we a have sent you a boat,
- - -
2
painted red, with mast & sails, to
sail in the round pond by the
windmill - - Mummy has sent you
a boat-hook to catch it when it
comes to shore. Also Mummy has
sent you some sand-toys to play
in the sand with, and a card-game.
Have you heard about the
Toad? He was never taken prisoner
by brigands at all. It was all a
horrid low trick of his. He wrote
that letter himself - the letter saying
that a hundred pounds must be
put in the hollow tree. And he got
out of the window early one morning,
& went off to a town called Buggleton
& went to the Red Lion Hotel & there
he found a party that had just
motored down from London, &
while they were having breakfast he

went into the stable-yard & found
their motor-car & went off in it
without even saying Poop-poop!
And now he has vanished & every
one is looking for him, including
the police. I fear he is a bad
low animal.
Goodbye, from
Your loving Daddy.

GREEN BANK HOTEL.
FALMOUTH.
23 rd May 1907.
My dearest Mouse
Thank you very much
for your nice letter. It was very
interesting & full of news, and I
read it through several times.
I hope you have got some warm
weather again by this time. It is
very hard to live in sight of a
beach & not be able to dig, & dig
& dig & dig - all day long.
No doubt you have met some
of the animals & have heard
about Toad's Adventures since
he was dragged off to prison

by the bobby & the constable. At first
he lay full length on the floor, and
shed bitter tears, and abandoned
himself to dark despair. For he
said "How can I every hope to be
set free again, I who have been
imprisoned - and justly - so
often, for stealing so many - so
many --- he could not utter the
word, for his sobs choked him.
Base animal that I am (he said):
O unhappy & abandoned ^ forsaken toad (he said):
I must languish in this dungeon
(he said) till people have forgotten
the very name of Mr. Toad. With
lamentations such as these he
passed his days & nights, refusing
consolation, refusing food or other
light refreshments: till one day
- - -
the gaoler's daughter, who was a
tender-hearted young woman, took
pity on him & said 'Cheer up toad!
& try & eat a bit of dinner". But the toad
lay on the floor & wailed & wouldn't
eat his dinner. Then the gaoler's
daughter went & fetched a cup of
hot tea & some very hot buttered
toast, cut thick, very brown on
both sides, with the butter running
through the holes in it in great
golden drops like honey. When
the toad smelt the buttered toast he
sat up & dried his eyes for he was
exceedingly fond of buttered toast;
& the gaoler's daughter comforted
him & he drank his tea & had
another plate of toast. Then they
discussed plans for his escape from
the Dungeon, & the gaoler's daughter

said 'Tomorrow my aunt, who is
the washerwoman to the prison,
will bring home your week's washing,
& I will dress you up in her clothes
& you will escape as the washerwoman'
So when the washerwoman came with
the linen, they dressed toad up in
her clothes & put a bonnet on his
head, & out he marched, past the
gaolers, as bold as you please.
As he was passing one of them, the
man said "Hullo mother washerwoman,
why didn't you send home my
Sunday shirt last week, you lazy
old pig?" & he took his stick & beat
her full sore. And the toad was
made with rage, because he wanted
to give him a punch in the eye,
but he controlled himself & ran on
through the door, which banged behind
him & he was Free. This is as far as
I have heard at present.
Your affectionate
Daddy -

FOWEY HOTEL
FOWEY, CORNWALL, 28 May 1907.

My dearest Mouse
I am very glad to hear that
you have got rid of your cold, & have
been able to sail your boat in the
pond. Now I daresay you will want
to hear something more of the sad
misadventures of M r. Toad. Well,
when he found himself outside the
prison gates it was quite dark &
he was in a strange land, with no
no friends, & he was frightened, &
didn't know what to do. But he
- - -
could hear the puffing of steam-engines
not very far off, & he saw some red &
green lights through the trees, & he said
to himself 'That must be a railway
station, & if I am to get home the first
thing to do is to get in to a train that
goes there.' So he made his way down
to the station & went into the ticket
office & asked for a ticket. And the man
said "Where for?" And the toad told
him. And the man said "That will
cost five shillings". So the toad felt
for his pocket, to find his money, when
to his horror & dismay he couldn't find
any pocket! Because he had got the
washerwoman's dress on. Then he remembered
that when he had changed clothes in such
a hurry he had left all his money, & his
keys, & pencil, & matches, & everything,
in the pockets of the clothes he had taken
off. So there he was, miles & miles from
home, dressed like a washerwoman,
without a penny of money. Then M r. Toad
shed bitter tears, & said to the man "Please
I have lost all my money - will you be
very kind & give me a ticket for nothing."

But the man only laughed and said "Go away
old woman! We don't carry washerwomen for
nothing on this railway! So the toad went away
crying, and wandered down the platform by
the side of the train, thinking whatever should he
do, till he came to where the engine was.
And the engine-driver saw he was crying , & said
cheerfully "What's the matter, mother?"
And the toad replied "I want to get home, so
badly, but I've lost all my money & I can't
buy a ticket." Now the engine-driver was a
kind-hearted man, & he said "Look here,
washerwoman! This engine-driving is very
dirty work, and I dirty so many shirts that my
wife says she's tired of washing 'em. If you
will wash two shirts for me next week, I'll
let you ride on the engine with me now, & so
you will get home for nothing!" Then the toad
was overjoyed, and he sprang up on the engine
with great delight. Of course he had never washed
a shirt in his life, and couldn't if he tried,
but he thought "When I get home & get some
more money, I will send the engine-driver
some, to pay for his washing, & that will be
just the same." Presently the engine-driver blew
his whistle & the train began to move out of the
station; & soon they were puffing & rattling
through the country, ever so fast, & the toad
was jumping up & down with sheer delight, to
think that soon he would be home again.
- - -
Suddenly the engine-driver began to listen;
presently he said "It's very funny, but I believe
I hear another train following us!" The toad
began to feel nervous. Then the engine-driver
looked over the back of the train, for the moon
was shining brightly & he could see a long way
down the line, & at last he cried out "Yes!
I see an engine! It is coming along very fast.
I believe we are being pursued!" And the
toad began to feel very nervous. Presently
the engine-driver looked again, & then he
cried "Yes, they are gaining on us! I can
see them clearly now! It is an engine
pursuing us! It is full of policemen,
and they are all brandishing revolvers
& calling out 'Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop,
STOP ! ! ! !
This is all the news I have up to
the present time.
Your affectionate
Daddy

16, Durham Villas, Campden Hill. W.
17 July, 1907
My dear Robinson
WELL!
So when the Toad had stuffed
as much breakfast inside of him as
he could possibly hold, he stood up,
and shook hands with the Gipsy and
said goodbye to him, & said goodbye
to the horse, & set off in the direction
of Toad Hall. And by this time he was
feeling very happy, for the sun was shining
brightly, & his wet clothes were quite
dry again, & he had had a first-rate
breakfast, & he had got money in his
pocket, & he was getting near his home.
And he thought of his adventures, &
all the dangers he had escaped, & he
began to be very proud & stuck-up, and
"Ho ho," he said to himself as he
tramped along, "what a clever animal

I am! There is no one like me in the whole
world! My enemies shut me up in prison;
I escape with the greatest ease ^ by sheer ability & [daring?]. They pursue
me with engines & policemen & revolvers;
I simply laugh at ^ the whole band of them & disappear.
I am ^ unfortunately thrown into canals; ^ [__] I swim to land,
seize a horse, ^ escape [__] sell it for a pocketful of
money, get breakfasts given me & am made
welcome wherever I go! Ho ho! I am The
Toad, the handsome, the popular, the glorious
Toad!" Then he got to puffed up with pride
& conceit that he made up a song, in praise
of himself, & sang it as he walked along,
& it was a conceited song! Here are some
of the verses:-

The world has held great Heroes,
As history-books have showed,
But none so divine, or half so fine ^ never a name to go down to fame
As the famous Mr. ^ Compared with that of Toad!

The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed;
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent M r. Toad!
- - -
The animals sat in the Ark & cried,
Their tears in torrents flowed;
Who was it said "There's Land ahead"?
Encouraging M r. Toad!

The Army all saluted
As they marched along the road.
- Was it the King? - or Kitchener?
No; it was M r. Toad.

The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting
Sat at the window and sewed.
She cried "Look! who's that handsome man?"
They answered: "Mr. Toad!"

This was the sort of stuff that he sang,
the conceited animal. But his pride
was soon to have a fall. Let it be a
lesson to us, not to be so xxx puffed up
& conceited as the proud Toad.
Presently he came to the high-road
which ran past the common; and as
he glanced up it, he saw, very far away,
a dark speck, which gradually grew

larger & larger & larger ; & then he heard
a faint humming noise, which gradually
grew louder & louder & louder: & then
he heard a very well known sound, & that
was
Poop! poop!
"Ho ho!" said the Toad, "this is life, this
is what I like! I will stop them & ask
them to give me a lift, & so I will drive
up to Toad Hall in triumph on a motor-
car! And perhaps I shall be able to
-borrow that motor-car." He did not
say "steal", but I fear the wicked animal
thought it. He stepped out into the road
to hail the car, when suddenly his face
turned very pale, his knees trembled &
shook, & he had a bad pain in his tummy.
Why was this? Because he had suddenly
recognized the car as the very one he
had stolen out of the yard of the
Red Lion Hotel! And the people sitting
inside were the very people who had gone
into the Hotel for refreshments on that
fatal day!
(To be continued) Dr/

16, Durham Villas, Campden Hill. W.
7 th August, 1907.
My dear Michael Robinson
When the Toad saw that his enemies
were close upon him, his heart turned to water,
his muscles failed, & he sank down in a
shabby miserable heap in the road, murmuring
to himself "It's all up! It's all over now!
Prison again! Dry bread & water again!
Chains & policemen again! O what a fool
I have been! What did I want to go
strutting about the country for, singing
conceited songs, instead of going quietly
home by back ways & hiding, until it
all blew over! O unhappy toad! O
miserable animal!" And his head
sank down in the dust.
The terrible motor car drew nearer
& nearer & nearer. Then it stopped.
Some gentlemen got out. They walked
round the trembling heap of misery lying

in the road, & one of them said - "O dear!
Here is a poor old washer woman who has
fainted in the road! Perhaps she is
overcome by the heat, poor thing, or perhaps
she has not had enough food! Anyhow, let
us lift her into the motor-car & take her
to the nearest village."
So they tenderly lifted the toad into the
motor-car & propped him up on the cushions,
& started off. When the toad heard them
talk in that kind way, & knew that he
was not recognized, his courage began
to revive, & he opened one of his eyes.
Then one of the gentlemen said: "See, she is
better already! The fresh air is doing her
good! How do you feel now, washerwoman?"
The toad answered in a feeble voice
"Thank you kindly, Sir, I'm feeling rather
better. I think if I might sit on the
front seat, beside the chauffeur, where
I could get more air, I should soon be
quite right again."
"That's a very sensible woman" said the
gentleman. So they helped her him into the
front seat, beside the chauffeur, & on
- - -
went the car. The toad began to sit up, & look
about him, & presently he said to the chauffeur
"Please M r. Chauffeur, I wish you would
let me try to drive the car for a little;
it looks so easy; I'm sure I could xx do
it quite well!"
The chauffeur laughed, heartily. But
one of the gentlemen said "Bravo, washerwoman,
I like your spirit! Let her try. She won't
do any harm."
So the chauffeur gave up his seat to the
toad, & he took the steering wheel in his hands,
& set the car going, & off they went, very slowly
& carefully at first, for the toad was prudent.
The gentlemen clapped their hands, & cried
"Bravo, washerwoman! How well she
does it! Fancy a washerwoman driving
a motor car! Bravo!
Then the Toad went a little faster.
The gentlemen applauded. The Toad went
faster still.
Then, when the when he felt the air
singing past his ears, & the car throbbing

under him, the Toad began to lose his head.
He went faster & faster still. The gentlemen
called out warningly "Be careful,
washerwoman!" Then the Toad lost his
head entirely. He stood up in his seat &
shouted "Ho ho! Who are you calling
washerwoman! I am the Toad! the famous
M r. Toad! The motor-car-driver, the toad
who always escapes, who baffles his
enemies, who dodges policemen, who
breaks out of prison, the always-victorious,
the triumphant Toad!"
Then the gentlemen & the chauffeur arose
& flung themselves upon him. "Seize him!
they cried. "Seize the toad, the wicked
animal who stole our motor-car!
Bind him, chain him, drag him to the
police-station! Down with the Toad!"
Alas! They ought to have remembered
to stop the motor-car before playing any
pranks of that sort. With a half-turn
of the wheel the Toad sent the car
crashing through the hedge. Then it gave
an enormous bound, and sploosh! it
landed in a horse-pond!

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The Wind in the Willows: Letters from Kenneth Grahame to his son, Alastair ('Mouse') Grahame

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GREEN BANK HOTEL, FALMOUTH, 10 th May 1907, My darling Mouse This is a birth-day letter, to wish you very many happy returns of the day. I wish we could have been all together, but we shall meet again soon, & then we will have treats.