Poetry Friday: The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base

Friday, September 30th, 2011

I’m taking my cue for my Poetry Friday post today from my daughter.  She came home very excited about a book she encountered at school called The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base (Stoddart, 1988).  Get it out of the library for me, she insisted and so I did.  The copy was well-worn and tattered, obviously a book enjoyed by many.  A truly interactive book, The Eleventh Hour, in rhyming quatrains, sets out a mystery for the reader to solve through clues found on each of the elaborately illustrated pages.  Horace, the elephant has turned eleven, and has invited all his friends to a birthday gathering at his estate.  There will be a tremendous feast to be served at the eleventh hour — however, while the guests spend the day doing various activities, someone consumes the entire banquet, leaving nothing but crumbs for the hungry guests at 11:00.  Who has eaten all the goodies?  You the reader, must find out by deciphering all the clues found on each page.  A key at the back will help you if you are really stumped.

My daughter and I spent a Saturday afternoon together with this book, trying to figure out the clues.  It was tough, but fun!  Similar to his earlier Animalia which my daughter also enjoyed, this book is all about looking closely and in that way, reminded me a little of Anno Mitsumasa’s picture books.  If you and your child like a real good puzzle and figuring out clues, then this is the book for you.  And the rhymes aren’t all that bad either!

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Sara at Read Write Believe.

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Poetry Friday: Talking Turkeys

Friday, June 5th, 2009

The last time I wrote a Poetry Friday post, I featured a book for young adults by Dennis Lee called SoCool. While I was in the UK this spring, I found another great book of poetry for teenagers called Talking Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah. Zephaniah is a rap poet. His poems are a wonderful zany treat of language served up colorful, tasty, and rich. In “Vegan Delight,” you can really hear the sound of the words in a multicultural stew of rhyme:

Ackees, chappatties
Dumplins an nan
Channa an rotis
Onion uttapam

To give you a ‘flavor’ of this rap poet’s performance, you can see him recite the title poem of this book on video. Many of Zephaniah’s poems have a satirical, slightly polemical, edge to them but not without being entirely entertaining at the same time. Textually, on the page, the poems sing and laugh the same way they are read aloud, utilizing funky fonts and pictures to accompany the lines. There are some wonderful examples here of concrete poetry at its most accessible.

I have to say my favorite poem of all was “Who’s Who” with its wonderful ending stanza “I used to think poets/Were boring,/Until I became one of them.” Zephaniah is definitely one poet that is NOT boring, and as such is the perfect poet to introduce to teenagers. My son giggled and snickered through “Talking Turkeys,” enjoying its humorous rhyme. If the young adults in your household think poetry is the stuff and nonsense of boredom, give them a little taste of Zephaniah and they’ll be sure to change their minds.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Sara Holmes at Read, Write, Believe.

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