Ten Books for National Poetry Month (plus a weekly poetry challenge)

  April is a mere five days away, and that means it’s almost National Poetry Month! To help you get a kick start to celebrating poetry throughout April, we’ve put together an assortment of book recommendations. You’ll find a little bit of everything in this list of ten books: poetry collections, picture book stories told in poems, biographies of poets, even a novel in verse! We hope this list is just the beginning of a month of reading, discussing and doing (that is, writing ) poetry! We have a month long celebration planned in which we challenge our readers and the children in their lives to read, discuss, and write four different types of poems—one challenge per week. You can join the weekly poetry fun by subscribing to our newsletter , visiting the website regularly for updates, following us on Instagram (@readdiscussdo), or all of the above! To read : Choose a book from this list or any poetry book. To discuss : Do you usually like poetry? Why or why not? Can you think of a poem y

Inspiring Writers with GRUMPYCORN

by Tina Cho


In the book Grumpycorn by Sarah McIntyre, Unicorn sets out to write a new story. He sits in his special writing house, gets his special fluffy pen, his special moonberry tea, fancy notebook, and waits for an idea. But ideas don’t knock on doors. Friends do. And Unicorn gets upset. You’ll have to read this book to see how it ends. 

Being a writer, I connected with this book. And I shared it with my kindergarten students who are also learning to write. We writers set ourselves up for success with shiny pens and notebooks, but the problem is—finding ideas and executing a good story.

Picture books open up discussion with children. If you want your child to write, you can use a picture book like Grumpycorn to introduce the writing process. Your child could even write a story with the help of family or friends like Unicorn does. Your child could get a special notebook and pen and jot down ideas for great stories.

My kindergartners love writing their own stories on their own topics. And it’s picture books that inspire them. 

Happy reading and writing!


Comments

Trine Grillo said…
HaHa! Great post, Tina.
Mindy Baker said…
Love this book suggestion! Putting it on my to-be-read list!