All literature is created from our need to tell stories—about ourselves, others, or about the world—asserts The International Board on Books for Young People. Every story, fable, myth, or novel is the result of basic needs: they help us to understand the world, to live, survive, and also to help children grow up and to enrich their development.
Reading to Children
Learning to read begins with learning to listen, notes the Board. During the first months of an infant’s life, he learns to recognize his mother’s voice. From this and other voices, the infant begins to find his own voice and unique, personal language. While family and friends sing a song or tell a story, the baby realizes the poetic voice of those around him, a difference from the regular tone of conversation. The poetic timbre of reading and singing introduce children to the world of literature.
It’s crucial that we tell stories and read aloud to children, whether these are invented stories, remembered tales, or passages read from a storybook. Such times are precious and privileged moments, filled with tenderness and affection, where a child can discover the power of story and its magic.
Try It
What is the first book or story you recall that was read to you? Do you remember the first book you read to a special child in your life? What was it? What made this book important? Maybe it seemed as though it was read several hundred times over the course of a childhood. Think about the tale, the feelings or emotions you experienced, perhaps even the expressions of the child, and create a poem from it. Alternately, you could write your poem from the book’s perspective.
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Featured Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Andrew we enjoyed:
When death seems ever present, and the moon
Gives out but half its nightly shine
Then I will sing some half forgotten tune
Enchanting in its melody and rhyme.
Sweet words to go with bitter heart!
The book that’s bound can also bind
The soul of he who reads of it.
Ah, but to go without is to be blind!
To never see the towers made of gold,
Or breathe the heady scent of honey
Found in some delighting insect’s bower –
To never smell the midnight blooming flower
Or walk the sands of time, never to look
At what was past. Steadfast, instead, to go
Where one may look upon the pages of the book
That is one’s life, and see what you already know
Writ large as life itself. And then, to see the close
Of your own tome, knowing it for your tomb
But still to laugh, and read the lines, escaping
Not just your own drab space of chair and room.
And then, before the ending comes
To lift brave head and sing that tune
Once sung when death seemed present
And the shine was missing from the moon.
—by Andrew
Photo by ThomasLife. Creative Commons via Flickr.
Browse more writing prompts
Browse poetry teaching resources
How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
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- Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018
Donna Falcone says
Andrew, this poem is wonderful. So happy to see it again. 🙂
Heather – this dovetails perfectly with thoughts that I’ve had all morning – “Every story, fable, myth, or novel is the result of basic needs: they help us to understand the world, to live, survive, and also to help children grow up and to enrich their development.” I can’t wait to come back to this later!
Megan Willome says
For him: “Guess How Much I Love You.”
For her: “Madeline.”
Every night, for a year.
Monica Sharman says
“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines …”
Donna Falcone says
Awww melting…. that Little Nutbrown Hare is a special little guy in my heart. 😉
Heather Eure says
The dearest books! I’m sure you know them by heart.
Donna Falcone says
Nicholas convinced me
to secretly seek
red doors on hollow trees
and bunnies living inside.
(I Am A Bunny, Richard Scarry, was our youngest son’s favorite story for a long, long time…. my husband still remembers all the words, I think!)
Heather Eure says
How sweet! I hope you both always seek little red doors.
Monica Sharman says
Little Golden Read-Alouds
Seven-inch floppy record picked
from my Little Golden stack, settled
into the plastic turntable, knob clicked
to forty-five rpm, needle feeling
the groove, and I was read to: Scuffy
the Tugboat, Tawny Scrawny Lion,
red-nosed Rudolph. When the record
played a “pong” I knew it meant:
turn the page now, there’s more
to the story.
Heather Eure says
I remember those records! They told wonderful stories.