Our Children's Librarian columnist Julie Booker brings us a new view from the stacks every month.
![Book Cover I Did It Because](/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/book-cover-i-did-it-because/42875316-1-eng-CA/Book-Cover-I-Did-It-Because_medium.jpg)
When I was a pre-teen, I visited the poetry section with the voracity of a homebuilder in the DIY department. One of my favourite books was Chief Dan George’s My Heart Soars. I studied the portrait on the cover: his wise wrinkled face, eyes upward, channelling the poetry gods. I knew the 819s so well that when a fresh book appeared I sized it up like a new kid in class, wary yet hopeful. One gem that delivered: Sean O’Huigin’s Poe Tree: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry with its back pocket treasure—a phonograph recording of O’Huigin, bp nichol and Ann Southam. I can still hear their voices 25 years on: ‘wistful wisteria/ gross rose, gross rose…’ Another find was Ted Hughes’ Poetry In the Making, in which the author explains to kids how to be a writer, using poems to illustrate. The first chapter draws a brilliant analogy between catching fish and capturing a poem. Loris Lesynski’s I Did It Because… (How A Poem Happens) is a more modern and immediate how-to, illustrated by Michael Martchenko.
![Book Cover Till All The Stars Have Fallen](/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/book-cover-till-all-the-stars-have-fallen/42875320-1-eng-CA/Book-Cover-Till-All-The-Stars-Have-Fallen_medium.jpg)
David Booth collects many Canadian greats, such as Jean Little, Dennis Lee, Susan Musgrave, Margaret Atwood and Dionne Brand, in this anthology Till All the Stars Have Fallen: Canadian Poems for Children. And Sheree Fitch’s If You Could Wear My Sneakers is interesting in that the animal poems represent the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; the reader has to guess which article each is illustrating.
A few years ago, I found Chief Dan George’s Book in a second hand store. My heart started to (dare I say) soar and when I reread the poems I was struck with their sentimentality. He had inspired this suburban kid to create verse about eagles, mountains, rivers. As a teacher, I tell my students: Write what you know. Maybe it’s time to add: Write what you yearn to know.
![Julie Booker](/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/julie-booker4/42875312-1-eng-CA/Julie-Booker_medium.jpg)
On her first day as teacher-librarian, Julie Booker was asked by a five year old if that was her real name. She's felt at home in libraries since her inaugural job as a Page in the Toronto Public Library. She is the author of Up Up Up, a book of short stories published by House of Anansi Press in 2011.
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