Leave Your Sleep/ #PPBF

Hi Readers!

It has come to my attention that I am poverty-stricken. I am poor in poetry knowledge. For instance I never read books in verse or rhyming picture books. I thought I would remedy that a little in todays choice. Although not a picture book in verse it is about poems. I will tell you.

Title : Leave Your Sleep, a Collection of Classic Children’s Poetry

Author/ Illustrator : Natalie Merchant and Barbara McClintock

Publishing info : Frances Foster Books / mackids.com/ Poems / for ages k through six grade

Themes : Poetry, music, Famous Poets, songs

First Three Lines : From the introduction:  “This collection of songs represents the long conversation I had with my daughter during the first six years of her life. It documents our word of mouth tradition in the poems, stories, and songs that I found to delight and teach her — this parade of witches and circus ponies, a Chinese princess and a janitor’s boy. I tried to show her that speech could  be the most delightful toy in her possession and that her mother tongue is rich with musical rhythms and rhymes.”

Summary from Jacket : Natalie Merchant’s double album Leave Your Sleep transformed a wonderful selection of classic children’s poetry into a delightful collection of original songs with the Horn Book called “as much a work about childhood as it is a work for children.” Now a magical picture book, leave Your Sleep opens the door to a world of poems and songs filled with witches and fearless girls, blind men and elephants, giants and sailors and dancing bears. Natalie Merchant’s brilliant musical renderings, selected from her highly praised leave Your Sleep album,share the stage with Barbara McClintock’s richly imagined art to create a memorable reading, looking, and listening experience. This unique package includes a full-length CD with nineteen songs, one for each poem in the book. “

Resources : Leave Your Sleep on You Tube :

More about it on Horn books :

For a teacher guide pdf :

Alternatively one can ask a child to tell or write his or her own poem and put it into song. Or make up a song. And then draw a picture of it.

Why I love it : The cover captivated me and I have long needed to read poetry. I am sorry to admit it but I am ignorant of poetry. I thought starting with these poems for children would be ea gentle beginning. And it was. The  poems turned songs delighted me. I am sure some fo you know them. “The Land of Nod” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“The Dancing Bear” — Albert Bigelow Paine

“The Janitor’s Boy” — Nathalia Crane

“Adventures of Isabel” — Ogden Nash

“ Bleezer’s Ice-Cream” — Jack Prelutsky

“Old Mother Hubbard & Her Dog Revisited” — John Yeoman

Just to name a few.

The illustrations were marvelous and made me look long and hard. I was thrilled to pick up this book.

So if you want to join other PPBF writers go look at Susanna Hill’s site for today and enjoy other reviews on her links. also you can click on Perfect Picture Books and find books categorized by theme or alphabetized. No matter which way you go it will be fun.

For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

And for her Pinterst board look here : https://www.pinterest.com/susannaleonard/

Also there is another blog Susanna started with alphabetizing here :

So you see? There is no scarcity of places to look for picture books. Enjoy!!

See you on Tuesday! and again next Friday with another Perfect Picture Book.

My Books! in logo by Margot Finke.