The young boy Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge’s favorite person is his 96-year-old friend, Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper. She has four names, just like him, and he tells her all his secrets.
Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper has lost her memory, and so her young friend helps her find it. First, though, he must learn what memory is. And so in Mem Fox’s charming picture book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, the boy asks his next-door neighbors, residents in a senior citizens’ home, for advice.
Here’s is what they tell him: Memory is something warm, something from long ago, something that makes you laugh, something as precious as gold.
Paging through the story the other day, I noticed that put in a list, the definitions read like a poem, and as with any piece of writing that intrigues me, it made me want to give it a try:
something that shimmers
something that splashes
something soft
something sharp
Wilfrid Gordon searches for objects that he thinks fall under each category and brings them to Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper in hopes that she’ll find her memory. I won’t give away the ending, but several things are found.
Most important, old memories are shared and new memories are made.
Try It
This week, choose form two poetry prompts:
1) Add to the poem-list with your own definition — what is a memory?
2) Take one of the categories and write a poem about a specific memory.
Photo by Nenad Stojkovic, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.
Browse more poetry prompts
I have been a fan of Callie Feyen’s writing for quite some time but I finished this book in almost one sitting. If you have ever been in 8th grade, fallen in love, had a best friend, or loved reading, you will love this book. As the mother of an 8th grader, my other genuine hope is that my son will one day have a teacher as gifted as Callie.
—Celena Roldan
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Monica Sharman says
What I Remember
when I was riding on my brother’s handle bars, summer-dark feet
in yellow tsinelas resting on the front wheel’s small bolts,
and my foot slipped and jammed into the spinning spokes
halfway through the two-block ride home from the park
was not the pain (though I remember crying) but my brother
sprinting down Naffa Avenue for help. The worried man
whose strong arms carried me home. Someone’s gentle hands
cleaning long wounds with hydrogen peroxide and Mercurochrome.
Me, relieved
to be home.
The carpeted floor.
My mother.
My mother.
Bethany R. says
Beautiful poem. So glad you shared it.
lynn__ says
memory bank
something to make you laugh
something to make you cry
something warm as blanket
something cool as icicles
something that shimmers silver
something that splashes blue
something soft as cotton
something sharp as needles
some things which are worth saving
some things which are best forgotten
Callie Feyen says
I love the tangible items here: icicles, cotton, needles, blanket. I can feel a memory for each of them.