Shadowing details for poetry award
Posted on Saturday, April 27, 2019
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Schools can now register to join the poetry award shadowing scheme for the CLiPPA poetry award, with resources available from 17 May. To follow are ReadingZone reviews of each of the shortlisted titles.
Schools can follow the link, below, to register for the CLiPPA shadowing scheme. It will launch officially on 17th May, when registered schools will receive free teaching plans and poet videos to support teaching of the shortlisted poems. If they wish to compete for tickets for the award ceremony, schools can also send in videos of their children performing poems from the shortlisted collections either as individuals, groups or as a class by 9am on 13th June 2019. Five winning groups will then be picked to perform at the award ceremony at the National Theatre, central London, on Wednesday 3rd July. The CLiPPA SHORTLIST includes the following titles, all reviewed on ReadingZone, below: Kwame Alexander for Rebound (Andersen Press) Steven Camden for Everything All At Once (Macmillan Children's Books) Rachel Rooney for A Kid in My Class (Otter-Barry Books) Philip Gross for Dark Sky Park (Otter-Barry Books) Eloise Greenfield for Thinker: My Puppy Poet and Me (Tiny Owl) REBOUND BY KWAME ALEXANDER REVIEWED: When your dad drops dead of a heart attack right in front of you, you don't rebound easily - especially when you're only 12. It's not surprising that Charlie becomes angry and argumentative, skipping school and mixing with the wrong crowd. Not even his best friends, CJ and Skinny, can bring him round. Stealing from an elderly neighbour means Charlie is sent off to live with his paternal grandparents for the summer. There, fortified by his Grandma's fried chicken, his grandfather introduces him to jazz music and the importance of hard graft and his cousin Roxie introduces him to a whole new world of basketball, believing in his skills on the court absolutely, so that slowly but surely, things begin to change. Although centred around the death of a parent, dealing with loss and grief and learning to rebound back into the new normal, Rebound is also a very funny book, full of positive messages and role models, without ever being patronising or preachy. The emphasis is clearly on the importance of those you hang around with, family and friends, the importance of patience, determination and hard work and the importance of sport as a coping mechanism. It encourages a 'say yes' philosophy, acts as a timely reminder to be brave enough to try new things, to be the best you can be. Although billed as the prequel to Kwame Alexander's brilliant, Newbery prize-winning basketball verse novel, The Crossover, Rebound can be read before or after or even as a standalone, filling in the backstory of the Crossover twins' famous basketball-playing father and explaining his character absolutely. At over 400 pages, Rebound is chunkier than Crossover but almost impossible not to read at a sitting. The rhythm of the verse drives the story forward, making it immediate and intimate; this is emotional, powerful storytelling. Graphic novel style pages punctuate the poems, highlighting Charlie's love of, and escape into, comics but also cleverly make visible his inner dreams. Like Crossover, Rebound appeals to teens of all types. It is the perfect book for students who say they don't like reading, whether sports-mad or not. It would read brilliantly aloud to a whole class or form the basis of collaboration with the Music Department to create playlists and instrumental backtracks. The English Department will see potential for modelling poetic form - encouraging student experimentation and word play (eg conversation poems) while Humanities will find lots to debate around drugs possession, racially-biased arrests, and criminal justice. Basketball aficionados will also enjoy Tall Story by Candy Gourlay while football fans will devour Alexander's verse novel, Booked. Other verse novels to recommend include Jacqueline Woodson's accessible and emotional account of growing up as an African-American in the 1960s/70s, Brown Girl Dreaming; We Fall Apart by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan is an equally powerful, collaborative, blank verse story focussing on immigration, young offenders and ill-fated love while Crossan's Moonrise asks big questions about capital punishment. 416 pages / Ages 12+ / Reviewed by Eileen Armstrong, school librarian. EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE by STEVEN CAMDEN REVIEWED: The very best things very often do come in small packages and Everything All At Once is the literary proof. Often less, really is more. Although each short poem in the collection captures a fleeting moment, event or emotion together they build to tell the story of a week at any, and every, 'secondary school jungle' for every kind of student. Not for nothing is Steven Camden one of the UK's most acclaimed spoken word artists. Perfectly capturing the teen voice, he speaks directly to his audience - insightful and empathetic, never patronising. Everyone is given a voice in this collection - the year sevens and the school leavers, the cool kids, the sporty kids, the geeky kids and the teachers - making it fast-paced, engaging and all-too-true-to-life. There are first day fears and inevitable fights, post-party rumours, PE lessons, detentions, toilet graffiti, falling in and out of friendship, fitting in and finding your place in the lunch hall, loving lessons and (my favourite!) a teacher quietly inspiring reading. Though each poem varies in voice, form and structure, Camden's love of language shines through each and every poem, making even the most ordinary event seem extraordinary. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, these poems beg to be read aloud and are perfect for performance. Pacy, punchy, perfectly-crafted, this is a book you'll come back to, and dip in and out of, again and again. Pastoral leaders will find much here for assemblies and tutor sessions, English teachers will find inspiration for creative writing and 'getting to know you' lessons with new classes or poetry slam celebrations. Drama teachers will find a wealth of material for lesson starters and soliloquies. School librarians will need several copies to encourage those for whom reading has so far been a chore, to inspire creative writers and to make vulnerable students feel a bit less alone. Students themselves will find something to smile at and identify with and will be left, ultimately, feeling better about themselves and less alone after dipping into this small but perfectly formed, readily accessible collection. I just can't stop reading it - and recommending it! The power of poems and poetry writing also takes centre-stage in YA verse novel, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo as feisty Harlem teen, Xiomara, finds her voice and purpose through a slam poetry club. Younger KS3 students will enjoy Sharon Creech's, Love That Dog, an engaging and unforgettable story about a boy, his dog and his growing passion for poetry. Verse novels are very much in vogue at the moment and students who enjoyed Camden's collection should be pointed in the direction of Sarah Crossan, Kwame Alexander and Jacqueline Woodson. Students will also find their own voice in Kate Clanchy's new anthology England: Poems from a School, a vivid portrait of England penned by young migrants making England their home. 128 pages / Ages 11+ / Reviewed by Eileen Armstrong, school librarian. A KID IN MY CLASS by RACHEL ROONEY REVIEWED: What a lovely collaboration between two acclaimed figures in the field of children's literature this is! CLIPPA prize-winner, Rachel Rooney, brings a whole school classroom to life (and I don't just mean its pupils), beautifully complemented by former Children's Laureate, Chris Riddell's witty and sympathetic illustrations. The collection gets off to a flying start (literally - Riddell pictures her on Pegasus) with 'First' (p.10). This is the annoying child who is always first. Enjoy the laugh-out-loud ending: 'Were she a poem, you'd know where to look: / she'd push her way past to the start of the book.//' New arrivals in school in school should be alerted to 'Tips for the New Boy' (p.14): 'On Fridays, we always bring in a box of Gummy Bears / to share with our friends./'. Endings are everything for Rooney, and here there's a challenge for the reader: that incites re-reading 'Don't believe everything you've been told. / Only one of these statements is true.// Everyone is here: the 'Teaching Assistant' (p.80), the 'Substitute Teacher' (p.78) and a 'Job Share' (p.76) which Rooney uses as a powerful vehicle to take a side-swipe at teaching styles: with Mr Rote the days are 'Got it all wrong days. Rotten and long days. / Days when I feel like I'm failing some test. // On the other hand, when Miss Muse takes over these are 'Soar in the sky days. Bursting with pride days. / Being alive days. Those days are best.'//. As well as the many rhyming poems, there are other forms too. Take 'Fidget' (p.26) which takes the form of a kenning: 'Nose fiddler. Desk drummer. / Tune hummer. Pencil twiddler./' Whilst much of the tone is humorous, the anthology is shot through with tenderness and empathy. 'Seeker' (p.32) is a touching, simply expressed poem about the experience of a refugee child: 'Eyes as wide as continents brim with the water between. / Seeks a different further. Looks back on what has been. /. 'Talking Hand's (p.62) is a dialogue between a non-hearing and hearing child: She cups her hand to her ear / as if holding an empty seashell against it. / I say Listen //, whilst 'Inscrutable' (p.50) is about a child is an elective mute. The poems would stand proudly on their own but the addition of Riddell's illustrations adds another rich dimension. Each poem includes a black and white mug-shot of the protagonist (and these also feature on the end-pages). These are expressive, sensitive portraits. Just look at the sideways glance the child in 'Dishonest' (p.74) is giving the reader, or the eye-popping child bursting to answer every question in 'The Questioner' (p.70). Alongside these, there's an illustration, often sprawling across the pages, in subtle shades of blue and grey. Some are realistic (look at the simplicity of the listening shell on p.63) and add a counterpoint to the poem: in 'Tough Kid' (p.57) the illustration has an imposing shadow of dad over the crouched child (even the hamster is cowed). Others feature the fabulous imaginative creatures who characterise so much of Riddell's work. The poor 'Substitute Teacher' (p.78) is confronted by a class of weird, not completely benign creatures - a not very subtle but suitably hilarious reminder of just how scary supply work can be! And then there's the hamster... without offering a spoiler, look out for the class hamster's escape in 'Accident Prone' (p.18) and his appearances thereafter. It is only right and proper that it's the hamster who has the final word: 'The Hamster Speaks' (p.82). 88 pages / Ages 7-11 years / Reviewed by Alison Kelly, consultant. DARK SKY PARK BY PHILIP GROSS REVIEWED: Philip Gross has chosen to celebrate some of the most unusual and unknown aspects of the natural world in this mesmerising anthology which had me wondering, learning, looking and so much more. Quite apart from being captivated by his poetic voice, I came away all the richer for what I learnt about worms, tardigrades, terns, even ivy! It's a collection that works on so many levels: we can't but marvel about the amazing minute tardigrades who have been on earth for 500 million years: 'I was there from the off - / the sound of life revving up all over. / This was, oh, a cool half billion years ago.' ('Tardigrade in the Cambrian Era' p.55). I was particularly taken by the sequence of 'Saga' poems about these little known creatures. Short, tubby and with eight legs, the largest is no longer than half a millimeter. Endearingly, they are also known as water bears or moss piglets: 'You say tardigrade - slow-stepper, / sluggish walker, micro-sloth, Or, / if you want to get familiar, water bear. / Moss piglet if you must./ ('A tardigrade by any other name'. p.30). Graceful though Arctic Terns (p.24) may be (they are also known as sea swallows), their attacks on anything that threatens their nests are sharp and vicious: '... all clash / and clamour, shriek and wheel / like knife grinders in the flight.../'. They nest on sea stacs where '... the boulders / huddle close into each other's / shelter, tight against the cold / as the stone-spit narrows, and the weather // grips you, .../'. This poem offers a perfect companion for Geraldine McGaughrean's Carnegie-winning novel, Where the World Ends - a vivid fictionalised account of what happens to a group of boys and men abandoned on a sea stac in the Outer Hebrides at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Look out for the humorous strand of 'Extreme...' poems: 'Lava-Boarding' at the Extreme Sports Olympics (p.21); 'Extreme Aunt' Adelina (p.50) currently being searched for a by a submarine; there's an 'Extreme Uncle' (p.52) too but he's anything but extreme and only at the 'Extreme Musical Festival' (p.46) will you find a storm harp and moon music. Gross suggests that children may like to think up different kinds of extreme music observing that 'The fantastical answers may turn out to say a lot about a real place, or person'. Recent events are movingly brought to the fore in 'Aleppo Cat' (p.26): an atmospherically evoked description of a cat wandering in Aleppo's ruins: Gone / And where the fish man / tossed the bones. / Gone. // Where the children chased her / with fierce cuddles, too young / to know their strength. / Gone, /' As well as the poems, Gross's additional notes are fascinating. Did you know that Ivy-Leaved Toadflax was brought to this country in the cracks of Roman statues and has been in Britain for 400 years?! A robust climber, it has many other names: '... Call me / Wandering Sailor, Mother of Thousands; / in French, call me Ruine-de-Rome. // I'm here, I'm everywhere / you never look. On the brink, / on the edge, with no visible means / of support ... but at home.// Finally, the reader is taken to the 'Dark Sky Park' (p.94) of the title. Set up to support astronomers, Dark Sky Parks offer a space where the stars ('spark after spark / from a burned-out bonfire, /) can be clearly seen as can the flickering of the Aurora Borealis: 'that dark blue-green fraying / of the dark / of space, like fine weed wavering / in a stream.../. These are beautiful and persistent images with which to conclude, as is the very last reminder of the synergy between humankind and the natural world: 'Or picture this: a little boy our late / beyond the streetlights, dap-dapping his ball, / this one and only precious globe, alone / in the park, / in the dark, / the dark sky park. // 96 pages / Ages 9+ / Reviewed by Alison Kelly, consultant. THINKER: MY PUPPY POET AND ME by ELOISE GREENFIELD REVIEWED: It's not often that I get to review poetry collections written by a dog. It feels like no time ago that I was chuckling over Moses' and Stevens' Waggiest Dogs anthology and now the delightful Thinker has arrived. This unusual collection (Pub: Tiny Owl) opens with 'Naming me' in which a new puppy is unable to contain himself when he hears 'Let's call him something cute. / My eyes popped open, and I said, 'Uh-uh! No way! No way! / I'm deep and I'm a poet. No! / A cute name's not okay.' / So it is that the name 'Thinker' comes about, chosen by Jace who is also a poet. As the publisher, Tiny Owl, says, Thinker isn't just an average puppy. He's a poet. So is his owner, Jace, and together they turn the world around them into verse. The poem is propelled by a gentle narrative as Thinker interacts with the family, visits the park (where he coins a haiku or two) and, eventually, gets to accompany Jace to school on Pets' Day. Despite reminding himself of the rule: 'watch, think, bark. / No poems. No talk. /', he just can't help himself, 'And the next thing I know, / I'm jumping up and running, / running to the front / of the room, and I start / reciting a funny poem./' To the delight of Jace, the children and the teacher this precipitates a wave of un-pet like behaviour as 'the cat starts singing opera, / and the frog is walking upside down / and the three goldfish / are dancing in the fish tank, /.' The award-winning poet, Eloise Greenfield, offers authentic voices for Thinker and Jace. Writing about the collection she says: 'The characters grew on me, and I fell in love with them, with their love for each other, and especially with Thinker, this puppy who loves words.' She makes apt use of a range of forms, rhyming and free, finishing with a joyous final rap: 'Going to the house now, / going to close the door, / Got to say goodbye now, / please don't ask for more./ Going in the house now, / my good friend and I, / got to say goodbye now, / Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, / GOODBYE!' Tiny Owl is the first publisher of Greenfield's work in this country. Formed in 2015, they say of this collection that it forms part of its wider programme to promote under-represented voices and cultures in literature, and to produce beautiful picture books for everyone. And a beautiful book it is too! Eshan Abdollabi's vibrant illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to the poems. Abdollabi's depiction of Thinker is charming (not cute!) and it is this representation as well as the stylised, collage like illustrations that are so distinctive and make this a very special book. The illustrations are boldly coloured in contrast to the pastel-pretty endpapers depicting Thinker running through blossom as a bird soars away in the sky. This is probably a book that teachers will want to introduce to children poem by poem before adding it to the class book collection. Once there, you can be sure that children will want to revisit it. 32 pages / Ages 7+ / Reviewed by Alison Kelly, consultant.
