Book Club Spring Semester

Cornflower read in the Spring for Book Club:
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
Little Britches by Ralph Moody
and we did a Poetry Study unit.


The Trumpet of the Swan proved to be a much enjoyed book with scores of resources available on the internet including a wonderful website all about Trumpeter Swans. Never knowing what stays with young readers to connect with other contexts is part and parcel of the adventure of teaching. Several months after reading this book, Cornflower was watching the popular animated film, Happy Feet and exclaimed - "This is just The Trumpet of the Swan all over again except with penguins!"

Catherine, Called Birdy was a bit of a rough read. While there is humor in the novel, it is fraught with a general spitefulness on the part of the main/title character and a crudeness which did not appeal to Cornflower's nature. It was not Cornflower's favorite book of the year but she liked very much the character of Perkin and choose for her writing activity to re-present/write a dated journal entry recounting an encounter between Perkin and the title character but from Perkins point of view. It was a good exercise about the importance of perspective in story and good practice in mimicking the journal style that Cushman employed for this book.

Little Britches was a book that came to us in the midst of Cornflower's rehearsals for The Comedy of Errors and as a result she was able to do little else than finish the book for our club meeting that month. Alas or no? The Bard trumped Moody!

We ended the year with a unit on poetry study. Cornflower and her compatriots were given a packet introducing them to concepts and styles of poetry and included exercises to better their understanding of elements much used in writing including: similes, metaphors, alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia. The packet introduced 10 different poetry types including Haiku, Diamante, Shape Poems, Acrostic, Cinquain, and Limericks to name a few. The Book Club members were asked to try their hand at writing their own poetry using what they had learned about the different styles and poetic "tools". At the Book Club meeting, each member brought multiple copies of their poetry and the children complied their own collection of poetry to round out our year.

Included were three original poems by Cornflower.