Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk

Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk: What Are Similes and Metaphors? 

by Brian P. Cleary , Brian Gable (Illustrator) 

Lerner Publishing, 2009

Summary:  A rhyming book that uses humor to show the difference between similes and metaphors.  Full of examples, the pictures help the reader to imagine comparison made by the figurative language. 

Lesson:  The 5th graders were doing a creative writing assignment in class.  After using this book to understand the writing technique, I grouped students with poetry books and asked them to find more examples. 

Level:  2nd-6th

Twosomes

Twosomes: Love Poems from the Animal Kingdom 

by Marilyn Singer , Lee Wildish (Illustrator) 

 Random House Children, 2010

Summary:  Each page is a couplet devoted to an animal.  Cute pictures go with each poem.

Lesson:  The first graders were doing research projects on animals.  I showed them this book, which they immediately identified as a rhyming book.  I had them write a couplet about their animal, which they put in their research folder.

Level:  2nd-4th

Guyku

Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys

by Bob Raczka , Peter Reynolds (Illustrator)

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

Summary:  These poems celebrate nature, as a haiku does, but from a boy's point of view with kites, rocks and mud. 

Lesson:  After enjoying a few samples from the book, students worked on counting syllables.  Then using templates provided by the author online, the students created their own guyku, complete with drawing. 

Level:  2nd - 8th 

Wolf's Coming

Wolf's Coming

by Joey Kulka

Lerner, 2007

Summary:  A wonderful twist on the Big Bad Wolf, in this narrative poem, the local animals run and hide and the wolf gets closer and closer, until---Surprise!

Lesson:  I read this during National Poetry Month to the students as an example of poetry.  We then learned the types of books available in the 800's, such as Poetry, Jokes, and Tongue Twisters.  This book also makes use of highlighted adverbs, so I gave it to a student teacher creating a grammar lesson on adverbs. 

Level: 1st-4th