Joyful Noise

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Eric Beddows, was published in 1988 by Harper & Row. It won the 1989 Newberry medal and is a lovely collection of poems about various insects. The poems go into great rhythmic detail about the insects' personalities, habits, and sounds.

There is a note in the beginning of the book that explains how the book is supposed to be read: "...by two readers at once, one taking the left-hand part, the other taking the right-hand part. The poems should be read from top to bottom, the two parts meshing as in a musical duet. When both readers have lines at the same horizontal level, those lines are to be spoken simultaneously." I very much appreciated this note and I'm sure young readers would as well! Without it, I'm not sure that I would have felt the full impact of Fleischman's beautiful poetry.

The poems in Joyful Noise are truly magical. Each poem sounds like a unique song; rhythmic and full of life. When the poems are read with another person, like they are supposed to be, they really blossom into the creative genius they are. My favorite poem of them all has to be "Fireflies." It is difficult for me to type up an excerpt of the poem when I feel in order to get the full effect, you need to hear it. This link will take you to a recording of a brother and sister reading Fleischman's "Fireflies" aloud: Click me!

There are also black and white charcoal pencil style insect drawings throughout the book that correspond to the poems. They are whimsical and full of character and excitement! The insects take on personalities and facial expressions of real people, which makes them very child-friendly.

Young readers of all ages will fall in love with Joyful Noise. It would make a wonderful bedtime story for parents and their children. It would also be excellent for practicing fluency in school. I am really looking forward to sharing this magical book with my second graders. They love participating in reader's theater scripts and fluency activities so I am positive they will be eager to practice with this work of art!

Check out a copy from your local library!

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Exclamation Mark

Exclamation Mark was written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. Published in 2013, this book is about an exclamation mark on the path of self-discovery. He first encounters periods and tries so hard to be like the other periods but the more he pretends to be like everyone else, the more he feels confused and unfulfilled. Until one day he meets a question mark who, understandably, asks a LOT of questions! This completely confuses exclamation mark who ends up becoming very annoyed with all the questioning and yells, “STOP!” This surprised both the question mark and the exclamation mark. So then question mark asks, "How'd you do that? Can you do it again?" Exclamation mark takes off with sentences that are true to himself:

"Hi! Howdy! Wow! Yippee! This is fun! Way to go! Bravo! You're it! Yes! Home run! Cool! Congratulations! Happy Birthday! Yum! Encore! Go! That's great! Look out! Wake up! Thanks! Boo!"

Exclamation mark is so elated by this new discovery that he goes to show off his abilities to the periods and they are just as excited and happy for him as he is. This simple and sweet story teaches the lesson of being yourself in celebrating your uniqueness. You will be happiest and most fulfilled with you are true to yourself!

The design of this book is actually quite simple.  The dust jacket is a golden yellow with a smiling exclamation mark in the center. The end papers are a solid, deep burgundy color and I am not sure the reason for that color choice. The pages of the book mimic primary, lined writing paper which gives the story a very academic, child-centered theme. I enjoy the simplicity of the cover and illustrations and it works perfectly with the story line. 

As a second grade teacher, I plan on reading this book to my students for a writing lesson on using punctuation. Although this text would also be excellent to use as a reading fluency mini-lesson read aloud for reading the punctuation.  I have found that my class this year are very fluent as a whole but are still struggling to remember to use the proper punctuation at the end of their sentences. 

 Check out this book from your local library!

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