Fingerprint Girl

Fingerprint Girl

She's such a shy and sheepish girl,
But how her fingerprints all swirl.
Inside her shell she's like a pearl,
But how her fingerprints all twirl.
She seems so quiet, calm and meek--
If only fingerprints could speak!

My youngest daughter is very shy, but only on the outside!

Mark Twain indeed!

I enjoyed the Ken Burns biography of Mark Twain on PBS immensely, but didn't care much for his bio of Samuel Clemens. In any event here for POETRY FRIDAY is a Mark Twain poem, complements The Poetry Foundation. And I've thrown in a few Twain quotations, many of which he actually said. Quite a brain that fella Twain!

The Warm Summer Sun

by Mark Twain

Warm summer sun,

Shine kindly here,

Warm southern wind,

Blow softly here.

Green sod above,

Lie light, lie light.

Good night, dear heart,

Good night, good night.

"I was born modest. But it didn't last.

To succeed in life you need two things: ignorance and confidence.

Giving up smoking is easy. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

God's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children."

All quotations verified by Wikiquotes and my Uncle Alex.

Review from Eric Carle Museum

A lovely review of UnBEElievables was posted today  on the blog of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. I really think the reviewer "got" the idea of the book: Learn while you laugh, and look while you learn.

Top of the Shelf: UnBEElievables

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

UnBEElievables: honeybee poems and paintings

by Douglas Florian (Beach Lane Books)
This volume contains poems that often burst with humor, puns, alliteration, and rhyme. Each poem is accompanied by a nugget of scientific fact and faces a page of bees with attitude, sometimes wearing fancy hats or jewelry. Many poems feature different bees, including queens, workers, scouts, and drones. Other poems focus on life cycles, pollination, the recent disappearance of bees, and beekeepers. We learn a lot, and with pleasure in the inventive language and simple, funny paintings with lots of green and gold, which are sometimes amid collage and rubber stamp work. Further reading is suggested at the end, along with a BEEbliography.
Here's the link:
http://www.carlemuseum.org/blog/?tag=douglas-florian

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry

I'm proud to be apart of J. Patrick Lewis's new book: National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar!, due out in mid-September. To say "I'm in good company" is an understatement, as Benjamin Franklin, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling, and Robert Louis Stevenson are just some of the poets in this visually stunning book illustrated with photographs from the National Geographic archives. Contemporary poets include Jack Prelutsky, Joyce Sidman, Leadbelly, and J. Patrick Lewis.
Kirkus Reviews has already given it a starred review!

The Hedgehog

Poetry Friday is at A Wrong Spong, I mean A Wrung Sponge!

The Hedgehog

By J. J. Bell

The Hedgehog sleeps beneath the hedge—

As you may sometimes see—

And I prefer it sleeping there

To sleeping here with me!

                                         Walsall stone hippo by John Wood

Habits of the Hippopotamus
by Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943)

The hippopotamus is strong
     And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
     Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
     Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
     A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
     To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
     The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
      In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
     And other hippopotomusses.

Poetry Friday is over at Violet Nesdoly/Poems