Competent at peever: Liz Lochhead at Scotland Street

I loved this exhibition at Scotland Street School Museum! Competent at peever is the result of Liz Lochhead's year-long residency at Scotland Street and comprises poems, drawings and collages on the themes of childhood and primary school. This would be a great exhibition to take children to - while I was there, several classes passed through, all very well behaved. Student teachers would also appreciate it - I bought a collection of poetry, but even the booklet which accompanies the exhibition reproduces several of the poems and could be used in the classroom.

The highlight for me was Liz's art school project from 1968 in which she went back to her old school - it brought back so many memories since that was the year I finished primary. Not all pleasant unfortunately - I enjoyed learning "sums" with the cuisenaire rods she illustrated, and there's a real set to look at elsewhere in the museum (and also in Strathclyde University's Education Resource Centre), but my headmaster was not as benevolent as Mr Ritchie of Newarthill, and I still smart with humiliation from an undeserved punishment. You could have an interesting discussion about teaching methods then and now just based on that section.

If you're in Glasgow, hop, skip and jump over to this exhibition as soon as you can! It's on till 7th April. If you're not a Scot and you don't know what peever is, that last sentence should give you a clue - or read Poem for my sister: "I like to watch my little sister playing hopscotch.........She is competent at peever."

For more photographs of the exhibition, see my travel blog.

A gate reopens on National Poetry Day

In this guest post for National Poetry Day, Alison Forde writes about a seminar she attended with the world's first professor of children's poetry.

I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar on children's poetry with the worlds first (and possibly still the only) professor of children's poetry, Morag Styles, of Cambridge University. Morag is the author of several texts on children's literature including From the Garden to the Street: Three Hundred Years of Children's Poetry, Cassell, 1998. Morag treated us to a brief run-down of this history with readings from Bunyan's Country Rhimes for Children (1686), through to works by the current poet laureate Carol Anne Duffy. Throughout this three hundred year history authors producing work specifically for the consumption of children, which has ranged from the moralising and didactic to some of the most beautiful and timeless, have found their works marginalised and excluded from general anthologies compiled for the appreciation of poetry in the English language. The poems we looked at in the seminar which struck me with their timeless quality included those of Christina Rossetti, whose beautiful lullaby rhythms would still sooth many a baby to sleep, and R.L Stevenson, whose work in A Child's Garden of Verses demonstrated his ability to think himself back into childhood in writing for children. Ann and Jane Taylor writing for children around 1800, who found considerable fame in their own time, are now almost forgotten, despite Jane being the author of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, now often infuriatingly attributed to “Anon”.

For the second part of the seminar, Morag invited us to examine two examples of work from Carol Ann Duffy: First Summer and Star and Moon, both featuring mother and child relationships. Voicing one's opinions on poetry to the world's first professor of children's poetry could have been quite daunting, but I found myself, no longer at school and looking for the correct answer, liberated to give a genuine response to the works, albeit a response mediated through the lens of motherhood, which was also a stimulus for Duffy to write much of her poetry for children. Which brings me to one of the key dilemmas of the critical study of children's literature – it is written for children, and yet it's is impossible for the adult author, parent or teacher to know exactly how a child reads and experiences children's literature, including poetry.

I considered myself to be someone not much concerned with poetry. Like many adults, the last time I devoted much thought to it was at school, although I have read and enjoyed poetry written for children with my own family. The seminar with Professor Styles has reopened a gate into the garden of children's verse.

Next week is packed with book events!

Next week is packed with book-related celebrations. It's Children's Book Week from 1st - 7th October - follow the link for posters (see illustration, left, by Rebecca Cobb) and resources. This year's theme is "Heroes and Heroines".

In the same week falls National Poetry Day - Thursday 4th - for which the theme is "Stars". There are lots of Star poems on the official site and the Scottish Poetry Library has some fabulous posters to download. Even though I am no longer working in an Education Library I intend to put some of those up. No reason why agriculture students should not enjoy a good bit of poetry!

Next week is also Banned Books Week. This is a US event, but books can be challenged in this country too, sometimes for very unexpected reasons. The University of Strathclyde has an excellent reading list Banned: controversial books for teenagers and children which is worth investigating for more information. As Oscar Wilde said: "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written, that is all." Do you agree?

Finally, an ongoing event to bring to your attention is the exhibition Take Five Illustrators at the Scottish National Gallery which features Alice Melvin, Cate James, Barroux, Sara Ogilvie and Bruce Ingman, all of whom work on books for children. It's been on all summer and finishes on 30th October, so there's still time to catch it. No excuses, then, not to do something book related next week - there's plenty to choose from!

Dancing Sausages and other poetry ideas

April is National Poetry Month - it might be a USA event, but that doesn't mean there aren't loads of good ideas on their website for writng and promoting poetry.

Since 2003 NaPoWriMo has also been challenging people to write a poem a day - another great idea to use. Each day has a prompt: for example yesterday's was to write a nursery rhyme.

Another idea is "30 poets, 30 days" - here's a blog, GottaBook, as an example where the blogger is featuring a poem by a different poet everyday.

The Literacy Advisor (Bill Boyd) has blogged about a project to write a Global Poem for Change.

The Five Books site (every day an expert chooses 5 books on a specific subject) has been featuring poetry this week too - from a children's literature point of view, the most interesting was Roger McGough: The poet, broadcaster and "patron saint of poetry" says all children are poets and reveals why daydreaming is good for you. Here he chooses anthologies for all ages, which have "a fresh look and a fresh listen."

Don't forget about our own poetry page with booklists and links to other sites, and finally......

......the Sausage Whistler, a lovely animation of an Allan Ahlberg poem from Walker Books' Picture Book Picnic blog. Love those dancing sausages!

Poetry competition

Scottish schools are back now - time to get the children working on some new poems?

Old Possum's Children's Poetry Competiton 2010: Roger McGough is to chair the judging panel for a worldwide poetry competition for 7-11 year olds. The Competition is organised by the Children's Poetry Bookshelf, a poetry book club for young people run by the Poetry Book Society. To link with National Poetry Day on Thursday 7 October, children will be asked to write a poem in English on the theme of 'Home'. The competiton opens on 10th September.

New journal articles

The latest editions of Books for Keeps and Youth Library Review have arrived. They're both jam-packed with interesting articles - find them on the gallery upstairs. Here's an index:

DISABLED CHILDREN
PUTTING disabled children in the picture. (2010). Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 10-11.
Giving disabled children role models in literature.

ELECTRONIC BOOKS
Whitney, N. (2010). Winds of change and the emergence to the m-generation: moving from books, via the web, to apps. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 6-9.

HOOPER, Mary
Eccleshare, J. (2010). Authorgrapgh no 182: Mary Hooper. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 12-13.

ILLUSTRATION
Wyatt, B. (2010). Illustrators and public lending right. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 18-19.

INTERNET RESOURCES
Mynott, D. (2010). Stories from the web. Youth Library Review, 40, pp.16-17.
A reader development site for children and young people: http://www.storiesfromtheweb.org/

MEYER, Stephanie
Tucker, N. (2010). Once bitten: the fang bang fiction of Stephanie Meyer. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 4-5.

POETRY
Styles, M. (2010). Ten of the best poetry books for children. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 6-7.

PICTURE BOOKS
Browne, A. (2010). Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne on appreciating picture books. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 8.
Evans, J. (2010). Picturebooks are for everyone: children’s thoughts about reading picturebooks. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 1-5.

TEENAGE NOVELS
Barnes, C. (2010). The catcher in the rye. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 11.
How did J D Salinger’s pioneering creation influence later teen fiction?

WHITE, T H
Alderson, B. (2010). Classics in short no 81: The sword in the stone. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 32.

Children's writing competitions

One set of winners, one competition announced:

Children's Poetry Bookshelf Competition: The judges of the Old Possum's Children's Poetry Competition, led by Chair Carol Ann Duffy, have selected twelve children as winners, with a further six receiving high commendations. The CPB held a gala celebration and prize-giving on Monday 14 December at the Unicorn Theatre in London, hosted by poets John Agard and Roger Stevens, both of whom were also judges of the competition. See more here, including a picture of the winners, and here, including the winning poems.

Young Muslim's Writers Awards: Muslim Writers Awards are now inviting submissions from Muslim writers from the ages of 8 through to 16. Winners of both Best Short Story and Best Poetry will be annonced at a televised awards ceremony scheduled for April 2010. Deadline for entries is Friday 5 February 2010. To download entry forms and view submission criteria here.

Children's literature in Scotland

The Library has a new page on Children's Literature in Scotland. From it, you can access lists of books set in Scotland and of authors with Scottish connections. There are also two annotated booklists: Scottish Poems for Children and Teenage Titles from Scotland - the latter is completely new, though the other has been on our poetry page for a while. Finally, there is a collection of internet sites with further information about Scottish children's literature.

Some new journal articles

Two interesting journals have just come in.

February 2009's EnglishDramaMedia is a special issue on teaching poetry. Articles include Drafting, sharing, hearing, seeing in which Sue Dymoke writes about teaching poetry with ICT, and Poetry Online in which Jean Sprackland and Julie Blake introduce the rich resources of the Poetry Archive. (And don't forget our own poetry page).

Books for Keeps (March 09) has an article by David Wood who has adapted Philippa Pearce's Tom's midnight garden as a stage play. It's regular Authorgraph looks at Terry Deary, and it's Classics in short feature considers Edward Ardizzone's Johnny the clockmaker.

Find them both upstairs on the Serials Gallery.

More poetry

Last week's TES (17th October) had a couple of articles on poetry. In Poetry in decline, Helen Ward reports that Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, has warned that the teaching of poetry is being undermined by the free market. As fewer primary teachers appreciate verse, demand for new books to be published has dwindled. In Let verse loose in every corner of your school, Michael Rosen suggests that what is needed is a specific poetry curriculum and proposes some guidelines himself. To help you, don't forget our own Jordanhill poetry page!

Poetry competitions

The National Year of Reading has a competition for schools to win a visit from Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen. The closing date is 12th December.

The BBC wants primary school pupils to engage with learning and reciting poetry. Every primary school in the UK can enter a child aged 7 - 11 to compete for the title of UK Poetry Recital Champion, and the chance to represent their school and region in a BBC competition, to be shown on TV in spring 2009. The closing date is 19th December.

Children's poetry competition

Children's Poetry Bookshelf is running a competition for children aged 7-11. Old Possum’s Children’s Poetry Competition, with Michael Rosen chairing the judges, requires them to write a poem about "Work". This ties in with the theme for National Poetry Day 2008, which is on Thursday, October 9th. Entry forms can be downloaded from the Poetry Bookshelf site, as can materials for teachers to help children write their poems.

And of course, don't forget our own Jordanhill poetry page.

National Year of Reading Poem

The National Year of Reading now has its own poem, Words are ours, written by the Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen. This is also printed at the end of a recent interview with Rosen in the Independent, "Give children books not SATS", in which he deplores the effects of testing on children's enthusiam for books.

National Year of Reading - July and August

The National Year of Reading theme for July is Rhythm and Rhyme. As we already have a poetry page on the library website, I've linked to that. It features our lists of poetry books for younger children (Funny poems; Scottish poems; Spooky poems; Weather and seasons) and a list of teenage poetry. There are also links to other sites for finding, reading and teaching poetry.

August's theme is Read the Game. The influence of sport can help promote reading, so I've used this theme to draw attention to some collection of sports stories and, because it's an Olympic year, have included some titles on the Games and on China, especially Beijing where they will be held.

Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen thinks he might have created the world's first video poetry book. Some years ago, he wrote a book of poems for children called The Hypnotiser which is now out of print. As he couldn't get anyone to reprint it, he asked his son Joe to film him performing the book. He might do more if this is popular - you can find it on his website. Jordanhill Library has a large collection of Michael Rosen books, including The Hypnotiser - click here for the full list from our catalogue.