Silver Seeds

Silver Seeds

Written By: Paul Paolilli and Dan Brewer

Illustrations By: Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

Puffin Books, 2001

32 Pages

Poetry Book

 

     I chose this book, because it is filled with acoustic poems.  I thought it would be a great book to use to introduce a poetry unit.  The poetry in the book is used to explain different aspects of nature.  It is about two children and the things they find in nature as they are outside playing throughout the day.  The book is written in a lyrical poetry form; however, the story follows a sequence. The book begins with a poem about dawn.  Then, there is a poem about the sun, and one about a shadow; these pages describe the way the sun rises in the morning and casts its shadow.  Then, the book includes poems about insects and the different types of weather that the children see.  I love the poems about the insects.  The authors did a great job of writing poetry that is very descriptive and helps the reader visualize what the words are saying.  The book ends with a poem about night and the way that the children see the stars as silver seeds.  The poems are very well written, but are easy to understand.

     The illustrations in this book are paintings done by two artists.  The illustrators did a wonderful job portraying what each poem means.  Each page shows the two children outside and the type of nature they are seeing.  They also spell out the letters of what the picture is illustrating.  For example, tree is written beside the tree that is painted in the illustration.  This puts more emphasis on each part of nature. It also shows the reader a visual of how the pictures relate to the poem, which is very useful in lower grades.

     

     There are several ways that this book could be used in the classroom.  I would use it as an introduction to poetry.  The acoustic poems in the book are simple and would be a great way to show students how to write this type of poetry.  I think it would be most appropriate for second and third grade, because it is very descriptive; students are starting to learn about adjectives in this grade.  They could write their own acoustic poem, after I read the book.  It could also be used for a lesson on similes and metaphors in the third or fourth grade, because there are several in the story.  Another key element to these poems is personification.  It could be used to teach this type of figurative speech in fourth grade as well; therefore, this book could be used in grades two through four in teaching poetry or figurative language.   This book won an IRA Children’s Book Award in the primary-fiction category in 2002.